Cochrane Day
by miloowen
Summary: Set thirty-five years into the future, in the post-Sherds universe. Thirty-five years before, Will and Jean-Luc had had the best damned wedding Starfleet had ever seen, on Cochrane Day. Thirty-five years later, Will takes one day at a time, navigating Jean-Luc's illness and fading memory, and his own sense of impending loss and depression. He owes it to Jean-Luc, after all.
1. Chapter 1

1.

He was in that pleasant stage of sleep, just before waking, when he felt warm and content; he knew he was tucked into Jean-Luc, the way he always was, his head on Jean-Luc's pillow and his face in Jean-Luc's neck, his body pressed against him and his arm thrown across his chest. He sighed, a small one, because this knowledge meant it was time to get up, but he was far too comfortable to even want to open his eyes.

"I presume at some point you'll tell me why we're sharing my bed?" Jean-Luc said, his voice a little deeper from sleep.

He opened his eyes and smiled, the same smile he'd been giving Jean-Luc for almost thirty-five years.

"Good morning," he said, kissing Jean-Luc softly on his cheek, so papery-thin now that sometimes he was afraid he would tear it simply from the act of kissing.

"Good morning," Jean-Luc said, and then he remarked, surprised, "We're not on the _Enterprise_."

Will reached out and pulled Jean-Luc into him, encircled him with his arms, and held him tight. "No," he said softly, against Jean-Luc's ear, "no longer on the _Enterprise_, although I shared your bed – and we shared our bed – there, too."

"We did?" Jean-Luc asked. His face was pressed into Will's shoulder.

"Mmmh-hmmm," Will said, kissing the top of his head. "I was sick, and you helped me to be well."

"I remember," Jean-Luc said. "You were so terribly ill. I was afraid I would lose you."

"But you didn't," Will reminded him gently. "You can't get rid of me, I'm afraid, Jean-Luc. I'm here for the long haul."

"Did I marry you?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Yes," Will answered, pulling Jean-Luc in closer. "It was a great wedding. Everyone had a good time. The food, the music…You even danced with Mrs Troi."

"I did not," Jean-Luc said.

"You did," Will remembered, and he felt like laughing. "And then we stayed together on the _Enterprise_, and when I got the _Titan_, you came with me."

Jean-Luc sighed. Then he said, "Will."

"Yes?"

"You tell me this every morning."

"Yes," Will agreed.

"Don't you ever get tired of having to tell me?" Jean-Luc glanced up at him, his dark eyes anxious.

"No, Jean-Luc," Will Riker said, kindly, "I never get tired of telling you."

They were quiet, Jean-Luc content to be in his arms. Perhaps, Will thought, he was trying to organise his thoughts, trying to decide if he was hungry, or if he needed to pee.

"How long have we been married? Will?"

"It will be thirty-five years in two weeks," Will said. "We got married on Cochrane Day."

"Thirty-five years," Jean-Luc breathed. "And aren't you bored, Will Riker, with being married to someone who must be ancient? I must be ancient, mustn't I? I seem to remember I was considerably older than you."

"You are thirty years older than me," Will corrected, "almost to the day, and, no, you're not ancient, and no, I'm not bored. I've never been bored, with you."

"And you don't get tired of telling me this every morning," Jean-Luc repeated.

"No, I never get tired of telling you every morning," Will said, kissing him again. "I've been the luckiest man in the universe, Jean-Luc, and every time I tell you, I remember just how lucky I am."

"You are my sweet boy," Jean-Luc said, his voice suddenly strong, and then he added, "I used to tell you that, once."

"In French," Will whispered, blinking back sudden tears. "You used to tell me in French."

"_Tu es mon garçon doux_," Jean-Luc said, and when he looked up at Will, his eyes were steady. "_Je t'aime beaucoup, mon Guy_."

Will took a moment to recover. "You haven't called me that in a while," he said, finally. "Are you hungry? Would you like me to bring you your tea?"

Jean-Luc said, "I don't think every part of me is as ancient as my memory…I don't suppose -?"

Will grinned. "You can indeed suppose," he answered. The contentment he'd felt before returned. It was going to be a good morning.

Afterwards, he helped Jean-Luc into the shower, and they showered together, and he was careful, when he washed Jean-Luc, to soap him gently so as not to bruise. There'd been a time when a shared shower would have led to making love again, but those days were gone for Jean-Luc, and truth be told, mostly gone for Will as well. He was only seventy-two – Jean-Luc had still been captain of the _Enterprise_, at seventy-two – but the consequences of his long illness, and a subsequent injury while captain of the _Titan_ had led to an artificial pancreas and a realisation that Jean-Luc needed him far more than Starfleet did.

Jean-Luc could still dress himself and so he did, even though he still shunned the brighter colours Will had been trying for thirty-five years to get him to wear. Will cleaned up the head – he refused to call it a bathroom – and checked to make sure that Jean-Luc was okay to do his exercises.

In the kitchen, Will opened the back door and then the window, and the kitchen was filled with sunlight and birdsong. Spring was on its way – there was a green haze around the trees, and the blood oranges and Meyer lemons and pears were all in bloom. He filled the kettle with water and placed it to boil on the stove, found Jean-Luc's mug and his tray, and set about making the simple breakfast Jean-Luc preferred. Outside the back door Mercè had left a basket with fresh eggs and sprigs of parsley. He took the croissants he'd baked last night and warmed them up in the oven, set the eggs in the sink, and took the kettle off the stove before its whistle bothered Jean-Luc, as he could no longer tolerate high-pitched sounds. He poured the water into the ceramic teapot and set the tea in to steep, and then he finished arranging the tray. Even though he no longer breakfasted with Beverly, Jean-Luc still preferred that a crock of marmalade be set on the tray. Now that they grew their own blood oranges, the marmalade was homemade.

When the croissants were warm, he wrapped them in a towel and set them in the basket. Then he replicated himself a cup of coffee – he'd make coffee later, after Jean-Luc had eaten – and he walked into their breakfast room where Jean-Luc would now be waiting.

"There you are, Will," he said, smiling. He'd opened the window in here as well.

Will set the tray down on the round wooden table, and poured Jean-Luc his first mug of tea. "Are you sure you won't be chilled?" he asked. "I could get your sweater."

"No, it's a lovely day. I'll be fine," Jean-Luc said. "Perfect, every time."

It was stupid –one of his ten words – but it still made him happy to know that he could make the captain's tea the way he wanted it. Once, he'd made the captain happy by running his ship the way he wanted it; now it was merely the captain's breakfast. He'd read somewhere, and he didn't know who, and he didn't know when, that aging was a process of gradual diminishment. His depression, which had plagued him his whole life, didn't need much to rear its ugly head, and he squashed the thought of aging. He'd accepted those thirty years. And Jean-Luc had cared for him. It was simply his turn.

He watched Jean-Luc eat and sipped the replicator coffee. As soon as he'd escaped Beverly, he'd gone back to real coffee, and now that they lived here, in the villa in Catalunya which Jean-Luc had inherited from his godmother, he'd discovered cafè amb llet (similar to the café au lait Jean-Luc had grown up with); it was a joy to prepare it and then drink it in the morning.

"Aren't you eating, William?" Jean-Luc asked now. Then he said, "I suppose I ask you that every morning too."

He grinned. "You've asked me that every morning since I moved in with you when we were back on the _Enterprise_," he said, laughing.

Jean-Luc glanced up at him suspiciously, and then he said, mildly, "Only because you nearly starved yourself to death."

"In about an hour or so, Jean-Luc," Will said seriously, reaching over and taking Jean-Luc's hand, "I will take the fresh eggs that Mercè left us this morning and make a pair of omelets with goat-cheese and fresh parsley and chives. Okay?"

"Most definitely okay," Jean-Luc said. "You made this marmalade, didn't you?"

"We did," Will said, "out of our own oranges."

"I remember. We picked them, and peeled them." He sipped his tea and then delicately, cat-like, wiped his mouth. "You made juice," he remembered, surprised.

"For you," Will said. "I don't drink orange juice. Not even blood orange juice."

"No," Jean-Luc said soberly, "I know you don't, Will. But you've been having good days, haven't you? Here, in this house?"

Will wanted to pick Jean-Luc up and hold him. "Yes," he agreed. "I have good days, here in this house." He stood up and picked up the tray. "I'll take this back to the kitchen," he said, "and clean up. You fetch your sweater and then we'll take our walk, okay?"

"Okay," Jean-Luc answered solemnly, but Will could see his dark eyes were twinkling just a bit. "I'll wait for you, outside."

"With your sweater," Will said. "I don't want you to catch a cold."

"Don't be a nag, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said. "I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I am warm or cold."

"Sir," Will answered, and he walked out of the room.

It was stupid, and there was his word again, but the criticism stung, a bit. And it _was_ stupid because it was a longstanding criticism, one that dated back to their first years on the _Enterprise_, when he'd been adamant in his refusal to allow the captain to participate in away missions, or in anything dangerous; and then, much to the detriment of his own career, he'd also been adamant in rescuing the captain from every scrape (the captain's word, not his) in which the captain had been involved. Dozens, as it had turned out, despite his best efforts to keep Jean-Luc safe. The irony was that Jean-Luc had chosen him to be his First precisely because there was his strong sense that the captain belonged on the bridge, in relative safety, surrounded by security. One time, and for the life of him he couldn't remember when, and he supposed that was bad news, since it was his job to be the Sacred Holder of Memories, in the same way that Deanna had been the Sacred Holder of the Chalice of Rixx, Jean-Luc had turned to him and had said, "Cluck, cluck, Number One – don't be such a mother hen." It had stung then, too.

He took a deep breath. He turned the water on and hand washed the few dishes and then wiped down the wooden tray. He set the dishes in the strainer to dry, put the tray back in its place in the cabinet, and dried his hands. The truth was he was having some trouble. It wasn't, he thought, that this was difficult. And it had been his own choice – he could have stayed on the _Titan_, after his injury. But the injury had reactivated his depression, and he'd thought taking an extensive medical leave – it had been, at that point, almost thirty-two years since his last one – might be a good idea. Then it had become apparent that Jean-Luc's tentative diagnosis was becoming reality, and the choice had been easy. Jean-Luc had risked his reputation and his life to save _him_, once. He'd wrapped him in a love so profound he still found it hard to believe it had been real, and they'd had, despite many predictions to the contrary, a good life together.

He and Jean-Luc had sat down together, then, with Sascha, and Rose, and Jean-Guy, and discussed what they would do. Jean-Luc had offered up the villa in Sitges, which had been their holiday home, as their permanent home. Rose had suggested that perhaps her father might enjoy teaching a class or two at the University in Barcelona – in archeology, for example, or diplomacy; Jean-Luc had been reluctant, but Rose, using her extensive medical knowledge, had explained that the memory loss was not likely to affect his scholarship for some time. Then it had been Will's turn. He'd figured that he'd find something. He'd figured that caring for Jean-Luc – doing all the little things that he'd done to run a ship and just applying them to a much-smaller scale – would be enough.

Sascha had been furious. Will was sure _he_ didn't have a temper – so perhaps Sascha got his temper from Jean-Luc.

"You have been writing music," he said, "for fifty years. When are you going to do something about it?"

Jean-Luc, that traitor, had sided with Sascha, and his fate was sealed. Once a month he travelled to Starfleet in Madrid, where he worked very quietly on a few projects for which HQ in San Francisco needed his expertise. Every once in a while, he would find himself on a trip to Paris, or London; and, once a year, to San Francisco. But, using Jean-Luc's privileges at the University of Barcelona, he found himself with a studio and a small following of students who called themselves the "Admiral's groupies." It was embarrassing, but he was working in a way he'd never thought he could.

And yet…Maybe, he thought, they simply needed to get away, for a bit. They could take a holiday. With their anniversary coming up, it would be the perfect time to do something fun. There were plenty of places on Earth he'd never been. Plenty of ruins to explore for Jean-Luc, plenty of cafés and bars where he might hear some good music played. He'd talk to Rose, when she arrived. She'd know whether her father was physically well enough to travel.

"Will! Will!"

How long had Jean-Luc been shouting? He rushed to the door and flung it open, to see Jean-Luc staggering up the stone path, his sweater half on him and flapping, his hat gone. He was down the path and at Jean-Luc's side in seconds, and he gathered Jean-Luc in his arms, holding him tightly, listening to his ragged breathing and his continued "Will, Will," only whispered, now.

"Shhh," he soothed. "It's all right, I'm right here. I've got you." He stroked Jean-Luc's back in a circular motion, lightly, and then he kissed the top of his head. "You're overheated, Jeannot," he said, using Jean-Luc's childhood nickname. "And you've lost your hat."

"Will," Jean-Luc repeated. "Will."

"I'm right here," he said. There was no point in pushing him; when he got stuck like this it was best to just hold him and reassure him. "Let's go inside and get you something to drink. Okay?"

"Will," Jean-Luc said, but he allowed himself to be guided up the stone path and into the kitchen.

Will shut the kitchen door, and led Jean-Luc over to the old white table. It took some time, before Jean-Luc would agree to sit; he clung to Will, sweating and trembling. Finally Will placed him in the chair, and then he took a tea towel and wet it, wringing it out, and then used it to gently wipe the tears, and the sweat, from Jean-Luc's face. He replicated a cup of tea and put two teaspoons of honey in it, and then sat down beside Jean-Luc.

"Drink up," he said softly. Then he realised Jean-Luc was still tangled in his sweater, and he unwrapped it from around Jean-Luc's shoulders and chest and set it down.

"You put honey in this," Jean-Luc complained. "You know I don't like honey in my tea."

"I know," Will answered, "but you've had an upset, and you need a bit of sugar."

"I thought I'd lost you," Jean-Luc said. "I thought maybe you'd taken the shuttle, and you weren't going to come back."

"Is that what you thought?" Will murmured, taking Jean-Luc's hand.

"But you didn't, did you?" Jean-Luc took another sip of tea.

"No," Will said. "I'm right here."

"And you wouldn't," Jean-Luc added.

"I wouldn't what, my love?" Will asked.

"Take a shuttle and leave me."

Will took a breath, because the memory of the time he had taken a shuttle and left was threatening to bubble to the surface.

"I will never take a shuttle and leave you, Jean-Luc," he promised.

"I still hate honey in my tea," Jean-Luc said.

Will smiled. "I know."

Jean-Luc drank the tea anyway, even though he hated honey in it. "I waited for you hours and hours," he said now, peering into his empty mug. "Hours and hours and you didn't come. And then," he said, and his face began to crumble, "I couldn't get the damned jumper on correctly – oh, God. Will. What am I to do? How am I to do this? There's no _me_ anymore. The great Jean-Luc Picard," he said bitterly, "can't even get his fucking jumper on."

"And there was a time," Will said, still holding Jean-Luc's hand, "when I was dying, and there seemed no point in anything anymore. When it was too hard to even think about getting out of bed. Do you remember, Jean-Luc?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And you asked me to consider the possibility – that was the word you used – the possibility of sharing a future with you." Will paused. "Do you know, I didn't even realise that you were proposing to me, then?"

"Was I, Will?" Jean-Luc asked, and his eyes were beginning to clear, a bit. "Was I proposing to you?"

"I think you were," Will said. "The second time you proposed it was Valentine's Day…and we were here, in Sitges, on the holodeck."

"That I do remember."

"But the first time I was in my room in sickbay, and I was dying, and I just wanted everything to stop. And then you asked me," Will said, "you asked me to share your life with you."

"And you said yes." Jean-Luc placed his other hand on top of Will's and smiled.

"I did," Will agreed. "I said yes."

"And here we are," Jean-Luc said, "in the future. And you are stuck with a very old man who very soon will not even remember how to take a piss."

Will sighed. "I think there is some time, Jean-Luc," he said, "before it comes to that."

"And was there some moral to this story, Will?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Yes," Will said, and he looked into hazel eyes. "I want you to consider the possibility, Jean-Luc, of sharing your life – and your future – with me. Here, in this house, which is now our home. Will you think about it, Jean-Luc, and tell me in the morning?"

"I shall probably forget everything in the morning," Jean-Luc said, "including the fact that I am _already_ married to you." He was quiet and then he said, "Yes, Will. I will consider it, and tell you, in the morning."

"Good," Will said, another crisis having been averted. "I believe I promised you an omelet from Mercè's eggs."

"We were supposed to take our walk," Jean-Luc remarked.

"I think you should eat something first," Will answered, "and _I'm_ hungry."

Suddenly Jean-Luc smiled and it was as if the sun had appeared. "Well," he said, his old voice back, "if our Mr Riker is hungry, he had better eat."

"Omelets it is." Will rose, and took the skillet from the rack on the ceiling, and took a bowl from the cupboard, and washed his hands.

"Will."

Will dried his hands and broke an egg into the bowl. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry," Jean-Luc said.

"I know." He cracked another egg, and whisked them together.

"I won't dwell on it."

"No," Will said. "There's no point in dwelling on it." He rinsed the parsley and the chives and began to dice them, his hands moving quickly.

"You never opened that restaurant with Guinan," Jean-Luc said, after a while.

"No," Will agreed. "I like what I'm doing now." He finished dicing the herbs and folded them into the eggs, and then added a pinch of salt. He cracked some pepper into the mixture, and then took the cheese out of its cloth wrapper.

"You are a composer," Jean-Luc said. "I missed your band, when we lost the D."

Will grated the cheese into the bowl and turned the fire on under the skillet. He poured a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan, and waited for it to warm.

"May I have another cup of tea?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Of course," Will said, and he pulled the skillet off the fire so the oil wouldn't burn, and took Jean-Luc's mug and replicated more tea. "No honey, this time," he said, setting it on the table.

"No, no honey," Jean-Luc replied. "I really don't like honey in my tea. I don't like to wear my jumper either."

Will sighed. "And mean old Will makes you do both," he said, and then he instantly regretted it.

Jean-Luc didn't take offense. "It was your turn," he said instead.

The skillet on the fire and the omelets in the skillet, Will turned around and asked, "What was my turn?"

"I was mean to you, all those years," Jean-Luc said, and his lip turned upward, just a bit, as if he were trying not to smile. "Yelling at you. Threatening to demote you. Beating you up, once. Making you dock the saucer section manually. It seems only fair that you should be able to get me back."

Will was laughing, tears streaming down his face. "Is that what I'm doing, Jean-Luc," he asked, "making you drink tea with honey and wear a stupid sweater?"

"Most certainly, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said, "that is precisely what you are doing, in your own passive-aggressive way."

They ate the omelets in companionable silence.

"I suppose you will want me to take that damned walk now," Jean-Luc said as he wiped his mouth.

"Oh, fuck you, Jean-Luc," Will said.

"Ha!" Jean-Luc grinned. "There's the Will Riker I know and love."

"You are incorrigible, you know that?" Will said, taking Jean-Luc into his arms.

"And you are a royal pain in my arse," Jean-Luc replied. "I shall go read in the study, I think."

"And leave me to clean up," Will said, but he wasn't complaining.

"You do it so well, Number One."

"Years of practise, Jean-Luc," Will called after him. "Years and years and years."

As mornings went, this one hadn't been too bad.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

As he'd suspected – and, perhaps, if he were being honest with himself, hoped – Jean-Luc was asleep when he'd checked on him. They'd shared a study when they'd lived in married captain's quarters on both ships, but this villa had been in Jean-Luc's godmother's family for generations, and it was quite large. Jean-Luc had his own study/library, and he had his own office, which he used primarily for 'Fleet business. By mutual agreement they'd turned the back bedroom into a music room, and he did most of his writing and composing there.

Jean-Luc still had his book in his hand, and Will knew from experience that if the book fell, there would be yet another upset. Sound, which had always bothered the captain shipboard, now disturbed him deeply, and left him anxious and afraid. Gently he removed the book from Jean-Luc's hand – mentally rolling his eyes when he read the title; apparently Jean-Luc was rereading _The Aeneid_ – and set it on the antique reading table beside his chair. He placed his palm on Jean-Luc's cheek, softly, and then removed the shawl from the back of the chair and draped it over his lap. Jean-Luc might complain about the placement of the shawl or he might not, when he awoke, but his complaining was less likely to be as vociferous as it was over the damned sweater.

He figured he had twenty minutes. The captain had always been a light sleeper; their first year together, when he was in recovery from his illness, had been difficult because he'd still been waking with nightmares and the occasional night terror, guaranteed to disturb the man sleeping beside him. In fact, Will thought, as he opened the back door and stepped outside into the warm, pale sunshine; Jean-Luc was often awake before he even knew he was having a nightmare. Now, any noise at all was likely to wake him; sometimes Will found himself wishing he had the courage to sleep in another room.

He didn't, though. Have the courage to suggest separate bedrooms. If he got up to pee in the middle of the night – the joys of an aging prostate – it woke Jean-Luc; if he snored (which was happening more often, probably due to his inability to maintain a decent weight, an irony in itself), it woke Jean-Luc. And despite all of these interruptions, Jean-Luc was still programmed to wake before alpha shift, the habit of a lifetime.

He walked down the stone path, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his skin. There was a light breeze coming in off the water, bringing with it the scent of salt and the realisation that he had to comm. Pere at the marina for maintenance on the boat. It would, he thought, as he walked down to the pond he'd dug, have been a perfect day for a sail. Jean-Luc hadn't asked about the boat yet; he didn't know what he would say when he did. Perhaps, he thought, he would ask Jean-Guy the next time he came home if he wouldn't mind sailing with them.

Jean-Luc's sunhat was floating in the pond. He'd told Jean-Luc to wait for him on the patio, and yet he'd come all the way down here by himself, and then had somehow managed to forget where he was and when he was.

It was terrifying.

He bent over the water and pulled the hat out, wringing it dry. He could leave it on the patio table and then reshape it overnight. He turned around and walked back to the house, pausing on the patio to leave the hat in the sun, and then he was standing in the kitchen, the day stretching out before him; all the things he should be doing but probably wouldn't, because he never knew, from one minute to the next, what he was going to find.

Of course, Jean-Luc was gone from the study when he looked in. The shawl was on the floor; the book still on the table. He took a deep breath, because logically Jean-Luc had probably just gone to the head. It was a big house, and there were any number of places that Jean-Luc could be, either on the ground floor or on the second floor where their bedroom – and the kids' bedrooms – were. He checked first the two heads on the ground floor, the one for guests, off the kitchen, and then the main one off their dayroom. Then he climbed the stairs to the second floor and systematically checked every room, even the walk-in closets. The attic door was closed and locked; no one used it anymore, now that Sascha was gone, except for storage.

"Jean-Luc?" he called. Then, "Captain?" because sometimes that got a response.

He took the stairs two at a time. Round the house, through the dayroom, the formal dining room, the breakfast nook, the music room, the heads, Jean-Luc's study, his office, the all-purpose room which they used for entertaining (or they had), the kitchen. He opened the back door to the patio and the garden, where there was no place, except the shed….but that door was also locked. Could he have gone into the garage? Back through the all-purpose room to the garage; the air car was there, Jean-Luc was not.

Shit, he thought, and then he had to hold onto the doorway, because he wasn't breathing; of course he wasn't breathing, dizziness and then panic as the thought came, unbidden, that he had spent the last sixty-four years in a nightmarish and seemingly never-ending search for those he had lost. He thought, desperately, I don't have time for this, and he reached into that old toolbox McBride had left him and looked for something that would derail the cottony feeling that was the harbinger of a flashback and allow him to breathe. Pause the memory, he thought, pause the memory and take it out, put it in the file cabinet, don't think about it, just do it. Now put your hands on your diaphragm and force yourself to breathe; if you pass out, how will that help Jean-Luc?

Flex your muscles, he thought. Bring yourself back into your body. Take the time to do this now. Anyone peering through a window would have thought he'd lost his mind as well, but there was no choice, and he stamped his feet, bringing feeling back into his legs, shook his arms, rolled his shoulders, and breathed. Count the breaths, do it slowly, take your time. Really, Number One, he could hear Jean-Luc say, after thirty-five years you should be able to do all of this without any issues.

The dizziness passed, and he closed the door to the garage. Jean-Luc had gone out; that was the only logical explanation. He'd left by the front door, and where he'd gone from there was anyone's guess. Mercè was next-door, she and her husband Pau, although he was undoubtedly still at work; perhaps Jean-Luc had seen her and walked over to say hello. He wouldn't think about the other things Jean-Luc might have done – walked down the road in either direction, to the centre of town, to the sea. He walked back into the house, grabbed his communicator from the kitchen, and strode through the front door. He'd been twenty minutes or so outside; another fifteen minutes searching through the house; five minutes to calm himself down. Jean-Luc could have been gone for forty minutes. Walking, at his age, in the sun. Halfway to the centre of Sitges, then, or halfway to the sea. Or maybe collapsed – no, he thought. I am panicky enough.

Of course he wasn't sitting at the table on their verandah. He walked down the stone path and stepped over the gate, and then walked the few metres to Mercè's smaller bungalow. He mounted the steps and pressed the door chime; Laia opened the door.

"_Almirall_ Riker," Laia said. She was twelve, almost thirteen, and reminded him of Rose.

"_És la teve mare a casa?_" he asked. And then, because the anxiety was building again, "_És el capità aquí?_"

He heard Mercè call, "_Qui és?_"

"_El almirall_," Laia answered. In standard she said, "Come in, sir."

He stepped inside. "_Parlo català_," he said, and she laughed. "How come you're home?" he asked.

"Holidays," she replied. Of course.

Mercè came down the hall. "Guillem," she said, smiling. "Come into the kitchen. Have a coffee."

"I can't," he said. He already knew the answer to his question, but he asked it anyway. "Is Jean-Luc here?"

"No," she said slowly. "What's wrong?"

Will said, "He was napping, in his study. I went into the garden for maybe twenty minutes. When I came back inside, he wasn't there. He's not in the house. I don't know where he is."

"_Deu_," Mercè said. "Come into the kitchen. Have that coffee. We'll think about where he could have gone, and then we'll make some calls." She looked at his pale face and said, "There's no point in you going out on the road to look for him until we let the Guardia know he's gone."

"I can stay next-door, Mamà," Laia offered. "If the captain comes back, I'll comm. you."

"Okay," Will said. "Sorry, I just didn't expect…it's been a bit difficult this morning already."

He followed Mercè into her large whitewashed kitchen, and mutely took the _cafè_ _amb llet_ she gave him.

"He could have gone anywhere," Will said.

"You have to think what the most likely place is, and we can tell that to the Guardia."

"I don't know," he said. Over thirty years as a command officer and he was having trouble making a decision. "Half the time he thinks we are on the _Enterprise_ again…and the other half of the time he doesn't even know who I am. I have to remind him, every morning." Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it was how he currently felt. "I should comm. Rose," he said.

"Could she come?" Mercè asked.

Currently Rose was with Starfleet medical in Paris.

"She was coming home anyway," he said. "Jean-Luc's due for his check-up tomorrow, and Rose was going to be there. She was planning to stay the weekend…it's our anniversary soon, and she wanted to know what our plans were."

"Laia, why don't you go over to the admiral's house now?" Mercè suggested.

Laia nodded, and left the kitchen.

"How bad is it?" she asked, once Laia was gone.

He shrugged. "I don't think the medication's working anymore," he said. Then he stood. "I can't just stand here. I'll comm. the Guardia from the air car. There was a breeze blowing, when I was in the garden. It made me think it was time to get the boat ready. It might have given Jean-Luc the same idea."

"I'll drive into town, then," Mercè said, "but please. Call the Guardia. You don't have him chipped?"

Will said, "He was my commanding officer. How could I treat him like a pet?"

"It's not the same thing, Guillem," Mercè responded, "and you know it."

He shook his head, but said quietly, "I'll talk to Rose."

Rose, he thought, would know what to do. Of their three children, she was the one who always seemed to know what to do.

He called the local Guardia office, and spoke to the duty sergeant. Everyone knew who Jean-Luc was, it seemed, and everyone apparently also knew that he was suffering from an illness which had affected his memory. Piloting the air car, he made the call to the Barcelona office of Starfleet. It wouldn't do, he thought, if he couldn't find Jean-Luc right away, for Starfleet to be the last to know, rather than the first. The young lieutenant he'd spoken to was nonplussed, and had no idea what to do with the information. He left a message for the officer in charge, someone he occasionally met while at the university, and took the turn down to Pere's marina.

Now that he thought about it, it was the most likely place for Jean-Luc to be; Jean-Luc had bought the old ketch himself, and they'd restored it together, with Jean-Luc showing him how. He'd helped Dmitri and his parents all those many years ago with their boat, but there was a huge difference between a tribal fishing boat and the replicated antique sailing ketch Jean-Luc had bought. Perhaps one of the locals had seen him walking along the side of the road and had given him a lift. It was wrong of Pere not to have called him, but he would deal with that after he knew Jean-Luc was safe.

He'd convinced himself that he'd find Jean-Luc in the boatshed, running his hands over the wooden hull, using the sandpaper carefully, humming tunelessly to himself. Instead he found one of Pere's men working on a fishing trawler, with Pere not around, and the marina busy but empty of Jean-Luc.

He could carry on basic conversations in Catalan, but he was too frazzled to try to translate what he wanted to say; for some stupid reason, Klingon kept coming up instead.

"Where's Pere?" he asked the guy on the trawler; he couldn't remember his name. He didn't care what his name was. Using his command voice he said, "Have you seen Captain Picard?"

The man on the trawler said, "Senyor," and stood up, comically, almost at attention. "Admiral Riker. Pere went to the store. He should be back soon."

"Will you comm. him?" he asked. He realised he was standing at parade rest; it was no wonder the man had responded the way he did. "The captain isn't here?" he said, even though, again, he knew the answer already to this question. Perhaps Pere had taken Jean-Luc to get supplies. There was a supplier in town who could get almost anything, including tools which weren't replicated.

"No, Admiral, the captain isn't here," the man answered. His name was Cintet; he remembered that now. "Let me wipe my hands. We'll go to the office," he said.

"Thank you."

Will waited while the man went below, and then followed him mutely into Pere's office.

"On my way back now," Pere said in Catalan, answering the comm.

"Admiral Riker is here, looking for Captain Picard," Cintet said.

"Is he listening in?" Pere asked.

"Yes," Will said. "He's gone from the house. I've let the Guardia know. I was hoping he was here, working on the boat."

"He did comm. me yesterday," Pere said in Standard. "He talked about getting the boat ready."

"But you haven't seen him," Will said.

"No, my friend," Pere replied, and Will could hear the worry in his voice. "I haven't seen him, but I will keep my eyes open. And I'll let the others know." He paused, and then he said, "At the other docks –"

"I know. He could have forgotten which marina the boat was at," Will said. "Thank you, Pere. And you didn't see him in town?"

"No, but I only went to two places," Pere explained.

Pere disconnected, and Cintet offered, "I'll make sure everyone knows here."

"Thanks," he repeated. "You don't mind if I check the shed anyway?"

"No, sir," Cintet said. "You do what you need to do."

Will walked out of the office and headed toward the shed they leased. It was entirely possible that no one had seen Jean-Luc enter the shed; everyone was busy with their own affairs. He noted with relief that the door was unlocked; he opened the door, calling, "Jean-Luc?" He didn't seem him at first; he was on the other side of the boat, on the floor.

"Will? Is that you?"

Will wasn't a believer in supernatural beings, except those that he'd met personally, such as Q, but he muttered "Thank God" under his breath and practically teleported himself to the far side of the boat. He took in Jean-Luc's form quickly, looking for blood or obvious injury; breathing deeply when he saw there was none. He crouched down next to the man he'd loved for almost forty years and said,

"Just what the fuck are you doing?" He'd been thinking he'd go for calm and tenderness; what came out was rage.

Jean-Luc flinched, and Will immediately felt like crying. He'd never – even when he'd been so sick that he'd tried to kill his therapist – ever threatened Jean-Luc in any way.

"Don't be angry, Will," Jean-Luc said. "I'm all right."

He took a deep breath. How could he have frightened Jean-Luc? "Why are you on the floor?" he asked, forcing himself to speak quietly.

Jean-Luc shrugged. "I don't remember," he said. "I – I don't know how I got here, Will."

Will saw that he was still afraid. He said, "I'm not angry with you – I promise you I'm not." He sat down beside him. "Will you let me hold you?"

"Please," Jean-Luc said, and then, "I don't want you to be angry, Will."

I'm never angry, Will thought, but he said, "Come here, then," and took Jean-Luc in his arms. When, he thought, had he gotten so small and frail? "I'm sorry I scared you," he said. "I was just so worried when I didn't know where you were."

"I don't know how I got here," Jean-Luc said. "It was as if I were sleepwalking. I woke up and I was on the floor. I don't believe I'm hurt."

"I'm calling the doctor just in case," Will said. "And I have to call everyone to let them know I found you."

"_Mon Dieu_," Jean-Luc said. "You mean you called out the troops?"

"You are one hundred and two years old," Will said. "If you think I wasn't going to call everyone and their brother to find you…." He was quiet and then he kissed Jean-Luc's head. "I thought I'd lost you," he said. "What could I tell the kids if I lost you?" He was weeping, holding Jean-Luc in his arms, sitting on the floor of the damned boatshed.

"I'm sorry, Will," Jean-Luc said into his shirt. "I don't know what happened. One minute I'm myself and then the fog comes…and I don't know how much more of this I can take."

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "It's all right," he said, and he was trying to convince himself as well. "You have your check-up tomorrow, at the hospital, and Rose will be there. We'll figure it out, Jean-Luc, I promise you."

Jean-Luc said, "Rose is someone who can help me? Should I know her?"

For a moment Will didn't say anything, because he didn't know what to say. He tightened his hold around the captain and breathed in.

"Have you had a trigger, Will?" Jean-Luc asked, concerned.

Once he'd told the captain – when was it? he thought, and then he remembered that it hadn't been the captain he'd told, it had been Locutus. _If the captain is there_, he'd said, _then he'll know I've never lied to him_.

"No," Will said now. "No triggers, Jean-Luc. Come on, let's get you home."


	3. Chapter 3

3.

It had been after thirteen hundred by the time he'd gotten Jean-Luc home, and cleaned up, and fed, and resting quietly. The idea of just calling it a fucking day and going to bed too had been appealing, but he knew damned well that, despite his exhaustion, he wouldn't be able to sleep; his mind was spinning. Jean-Luc wasn't hurt – a few scratches, that was all; easily taken care of, but he'd called the doctor anyway, and the doctor had showed up and given Jean-Luc a shot. That had put the captain in a foul mood, and they'd both been relieved when he'd asked to go to bed.

The second floor had a wraparound verandah and so that's where he was, sitting just outside their bedroom, facing the sea. They'd found an antique spyglass on a trip to London and installed it; there were a few fishing boats out, a few sailboats; a lovely schooner, which was clearly a replicated windjammer. Probably for the tourists, but she did make a pretty picture, her sails filled with wind. He'd brought his padd with him, as he was supposed to be working on a new arrangement for one of the local jazz bands, but he was just too busy with what-ifs to pay attention.

He heard the ping of a communication, and he opened it up.

"Dad," Rose said. She was wearing a lab coat over her uniform and her hair was, as always, in disarray.

"Rose," he answered. "Where are you?"

"Still in Paris," she said. "What's wrong?"

Had he called her already? He was beginning to think Jean-Luc's illness was contagious. "Papi," he said, using her childhood nickname for Jean-Luc, "has had a bad day, that's all."

"What kind of a bad day?"

"Are you not going to be able to make it for tomorrow, Rose?" he asked, and he couldn't keep the worry out of his voice. "Because I think I need you. Here."

"You think you need me, or you need me?" Rose asked.

She was always too clever for words, he thought. She must have gotten that from Jean-Luc.

"Dad?"

He said, "We need you here, Rosie."

"The appointment with the neurologist is at 0900 hours?" she asked. "And what time is the scan?"

"Eleven hundred," he said.

"You have a good doctor," Rose said.

"I lost him," Will said.

"What?"

"He had an upset in the garden early this morning," he explained. "Somehow he'd remembered when I'd taken a shuttle and he thought that had happened again. I got him settled in his study and went outside for a few minutes. When I came back in, he was gone."

Rose was silent. Then she said, "How far did he get?"

"He was in the boatshed," Will answered. "He didn't know how he got there, and no one – not Pere or his workers – had seen him arrive. He recognised me, but he was disoriented and confused. And –" Will stopped. This was his daughter. What right did he have to burden her with problems that were not her own?

"And what, Daddy?" she said.

He backtracked. "And – it's just hard, that's all," he said. "Harder than I expected."

"You've been Admiral of the Fleet," Rose said, sensibly. "You can do anything, I would think."

"Well, I can't do this!" he snapped. She opened her mouth to say something, and he said, in his command voice, "Don't you dare tell me to breathe."

"Sir," she responded, and then she gave him a cheeky grin.

Well, it was his cheeky grin, wasn't it, so there wasn't much he could say. "Will you be there, Rose?" he asked.

"Yes, Dad," she said, "of course I will. I'll meet you in the lobby at about half an hour before, at 0830, okay?"

He sighed. "And you're staying the weekend, aren't you, Rosie?"

It was her turn to sigh. "Where is Papi now?" she asked.

He glanced behind him, and was relieved that he could see Jean-Luc was still asleep, still in their bed. "He's asleep," he said. "He was worn out."

"You can ask for help, you know," Rose said, and it was not her "daughter" voice she was using, but her professional one. "In fact, that is something we should be discussing with the doctor tomorrow. And with Starfleet. Have you made an appointment with them?"

"Why would I need to make an appointment with that idiot here?" Will said. "I spoke to one of his junior officers, earlier, when Jean-Luc was missing. He didn't know who I was, and he definitely didn't know Jean-Luc."

"Dad," Rose said, and he could hear the frustration in her voice, "did you resign and not tell us?"

By "us," he assumed she meant the three of them – Sascha, and Jean-Guy, and herself. "No," he answered, with some dignity. "I have not resigned."

"Then you outrank the idiot in Barcelona," Rose said, "and you should act as if you do."

"Rose –" he began, and she said, "Really, I've got to go. I'll see you in the morning, and then let's do something fun for lunch, okay?"

"Your father will be too exhausted for lunch," he said, but she was already gone.

When, he thought, as he shut off his padd, had he become such an old nag?

When Jean-Luc woke, he was feeling better, more himself. Will had been sitting in the old armchair they'd salvaged from the D, not really sleeping, but certainly not reading, either. He'd rebooted the padd once and seen the amount of mail from Starfleet in his queue, and had promptly shut the padd back down. Let the Federation live without him, for once. There were other, younger men and women out there; let them handle it.

"Will?" Jean-Luc said, sitting up.

He opened his eyes. "Yeah?"

"Are you still upset?"

That, he thought, was the understatement of the year. "No," he said. "I'm over it."

"You always were a terrible liar, you know," Jean-Luc said mildly, and stood up. "I'm going to clean myself up," he announced, "and then we are going to the kitchen, when you will fix me a cup of tea, if you don't mind, and tell me what Rose said."

"How the hell do you know that I've spoken to Rose?" he demanded. "You were asleep, and I was outside."

"Because," Jean-Luc said, "you always speak to Rose when you're angry with me." He walked into the head and shut the door.

Maybe he _was_ the one with the temper, after all, because he felt like throwing his padd at Jean-Luc when he came back out. Then he remembered he'd had a reputation, once, for throwing things, and resolved not to be so hard on Sascha anymore.

"I'm not angry," he said to the closed door.

"No, of course not," Jean-Luc responded.

Will heard the toilet flush, and then the water running. The door opened, and Jean-Luc said, folding and hanging up the hand towel, "Mad and cranky," he recited, "because it's all so stupid, and why does everything have to be this difficult?"

Will opened his mouth to deny everything, and found it was promptly closed by Jean-Luc's kiss. When the kiss was over, he was breathing hard, and Jean-Luc gave him that rarified smile – the brilliant one, where his eyes crinkled up – and took his hand.

"Don't be cranky, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said. "You can fix me a cup of tea from the replicator, if it will make you feel better, and have yourself a _cafè amb llet_, and you can tell me what Rose told you to do."

They walked downstairs together, holding hands, and Will said, "Are you accusing me of giving you tea from the replicator because I'm mad at you?"

Jean-Luc's shoulders shook, briefly, and Will resisted the urge to hit him.

"No, Will," Jean-Luc answered patiently, "I'm giving you permission to give me tea from the replicator, _because_ you are mad at me."

Well, that was just simply too much, and he found himself laughing helplessly for the second time. Jean-Luc sat down at the kitchen table, and Will felt himself tempted to use the replicator, just to prove a point. Instead, he put fresh water in the kettle, and set it on the stove, and messed about the kitchen until everything was done and they were seated together, him with his coffee and Jean-Luc with his damned tea.

"I hate to tell you this, Captain Picard," Will said, "but you are an asshole. In fact," he continued, "I'm pretty sure you've always been an asshole, and I'm only just realising it now."

"Ha," Jean-Luc said. "That says more about you than it does about me."

"Asshole," Will repeated.

"Whatever helps you get through the day, William."

"Let's go away for a few days, Jean-Luc," Will said, after a while. "I think perhaps we're both a little bored."

"Boring, is more like it," Jean-Luc said. "Nothing more boring than a pair of washed-up ship's captains, down on the pier, telling _remember when_ stories to any poor fool who will listen."

"So let's go somewhere, then," Will suggested. "Pick a place we've never been. Someplace you'd like to see."

Jean-Luc sighed, and then he reached out for Will's hand; Will let him take it. "We will only be taking my illness somewhere else, _mon cher_," he said. "I will still wake in the morning and not remember who you are."

"You knew who I was this morning," Will protested. "You just didn't remember us."

"Isn't it the same thing?" Jean-Luc asked.

Will said, "At least you didn't kick me out of the bed this morning," and Jean-Luc laughed.

"The look on your face," he said, and then he added, "My poor boy."

"Rose will meet us in the hospital lobby tomorrow at 0830," he said. "Then she wants to do something 'fun.'"

"I shall be exhausted by then, I would imagine," Jean-Luc replied. "Having been poked and prodded, analysed and scanned."

"And cranky," Will offered. "Don't forget how cranky you'll be."

"You will be the one who will be cranky," Jean-Luc said. "I will be mad."

They sat silently for a while, Jean-Luc sipping his tea, Will thinking about drinking a liter or two of coffee.

"What else did Rose say?" Jean-Luc asked.

"What?" He'd been drifting.

"Will. You spoke to Rose. What else did she say?"

"She's busy," he answered.

Jean-Luc made an impatient noise. "No doubt," he said.

"She's spending the weekend."

"William. What else did she say?"

"We should talk to the doctor about getting help," Will said.

"Ah," Jean-Luc said. "We've reached the stage where I need a minder."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Will asked, and it was harder, this time, to keep the anger from his voice. "If I can't leave you alone for fifteen minutes, what else am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," Jean-Luc said, and he was using his old neutral tone of voice. "Perhaps we have reached the stage of discussing other more permanent options."

Will stood up. "Of course we have," he said, his voice low. "You still have a quality of life – _we_ still have a quality of life – but because you feel put-upon, let's talk about ending it all. Fuck you, Jean-Luc."

He walked outside, letting the door bang behind him. It had grown warm, and there were clouds building up over the mountains. The situation, he thought, was not analogous to when he'd been ill, and had asked Jean-Luc the same. He'd been days away from dying, then, and it had taken an active decision on his part to keep trying to survive – it simply would have been far easier, then, to have given in to the inevitable.

But realistically, what did Jean-Luc have to look forward to? More of this, where he was in and out of what he called the fog; where he could no longer be trusted to be by himself (and Will still acutely remembered how that had felt, but he'd been the one to need a minder, not Jean-Luc) even for a few minutes. And after that? For Jean-Luc, it must be easy to see it all as one grievous indignity after another – total loss of identity, incontinence, drooling, no control of bodily functions – he, who had made his career out of his innate sense of dignity, and his ability to confer that sense of dignity on those around him.

The Klingons, he thought, had always been right. Far better to die with honour on the bridge of one's ship.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

He heard the door open, but he didn't turn around. He wouldn't apologise, and he wouldn't accept an apology either. It was too soon – way too soon – to discuss what Jean-Luc wanted to discuss.

Jean-Luc stood beside him, and he didn't say anything.

"I won't apologise," Will said.

"I shan't ask you to," Jean-Luc replied.

"It's not the same," Will said. He wouldn't look at the man standing beside him.

"Isn't it?" Jean-Luc asked. "At least I am bringing the subject up for discussion. You," he said, "left me to find you on the deck in your quarters, covered in blood."

"It's not the same."

"And how is that?"

"We'd been together barely a week," Will said. "I didn't have any idea how you felt about me. In fact, I thought you were just feeling sorry for me, and trying to make me feel better."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it's so," Will answered. "You know it's so." He could feel that he was shaking, and he stopped himself. "And," he continued, "I was in the middle of a dissociative state. I barely had any knowledge at all of what I was doing."

"You had enough knowledge," Jean-Luc remarked, "to know exactly how to break the mirror, and to make the cuts the correct way, to maximise blood loss."

"There wasn't exactly the opportunity to walk out into the snow, was there?" he said bitterly.

"If we wait to have this conversation," Jean-Luc said quietly, "I will not be able to participate in it at all. And I'll be damned if I'll let you – or our children – make this decision for me." He paused, and then he said, "It's my decision, Will. Not yours, and not Rose's. Mine."

"You sound like a two-year-old," Will retorted. "Mine. My decision. My toys. My ship. Thirty-five years doesn't mean anything at all to you, does it?"

"Come inside, Will," Jean-Luc said. "Please." Jean-Luc placed his arms around Will's waist, and pulled him in. "I'm sharing this – this process with you, as hard as it is for both of us. Surely that must mean something to you."

"As opposed to you doing what, Jean-Luc? What would not sharing entail?" He loosed Jean-Luc's hands and turned around to face him, still holding them in his own.

"As opposed to not watching you suffer," he answered quietly. "Don't you think I know what it does to you every time I don't know who you are? Every time I ask you who Rose is?"

"So killing yourself will be a magnanimous act for me?" Will asked.

Jean-Luc sighed. "William," he said. "I'm not talking about killing myself. I don't want to do anything except have a discussion about what this will look like, in the future. In six months, if you like. In a year. How far will I have deteriorated? How much do we both endure, with me in this house not knowing who or what I am, and you trapped here taking care of me? When you should be," Jean-Luc said, "back on your own damned ship in space. Doing what you're supposed to be doing. Which is not being a nursemaid to me."

"I thought," Will said, "I was your husband."

"You are being deliberately obtuse," Jean-Luc said.

"And you are being deliberately cruel," Will countered, and he turned away.

"Oh, Will," Jean-Luc said. "Let's not quarrel anymore. I won't say anymore about it, I promise."

Will thought, I don't know how to fix this, and then, I used to be able to fix anything. "All right," he said.

Later, after they'd had a light supper of grilled shrimps and _ensalata catalana_; after Mercè had shown up for a coffee and a grappa just to check on them, Jean-Luc suggested they sit on the verandah outside their bedroom and watch the day sailors come in and the sun go down.

"Rose will meet us at the hospital tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes," Will said. He had his padd and was answering his mail.

"You asked me a question this morning, and I was supposed to answer it," Jean-Luc said. "And I forgot. I'm sorry, Will."

"You didn't have to answer until tomorrow," Will reminded him.

"Ah," Jean-Luc said. "But I expect I will forget by morning, anyway."

"Probably," Will said. "Just don't forget that we share a bed. The couch is way too small for me."

"There are three other bedrooms in this house," Jean-Luc said. "No one said you had to sleep on the sofa."

Will resisted the urge to glance back at the sofa in question. "I refuse to leave this room," he said.

"You might get more sleep if you did," Jean-Luc suggested, his face turned away.

"I've never needed much sleep," Will answered.

"That is certainly true." Jean-Luc glanced at Will's padd. "Anything of importance?"

Will laughed. "You're joking, right?" he said. "The whole damned system's fallen apart. No one seems to know what they're doing anymore."

"Did they ever?"

"I suppose not."

They sat in silence. The wind was still off the sea; the clouds that had formed over the mountains had dissipated; the colours of the sunset purple and hazy.

"Hot tomorrow," Will said. "No wind, to speak of."

"It's too early for the sirocco," Jean-Luc said.

"Weather shield would take care of it, anyway," Will agreed.

"I used to like it, when I was a child," Jean-Luc commented. "I'm not sure, now, why. Certainly no one else did."

"Perhaps because it reminded you of an earlier time." Will put his padd down on the table. "When the sirocco would drive men mad, and blow ships off course. When the weather meant something. Like a howling gale off the Pacific, bringing ice and the promise of days with no power, hoping your supply of wood for the stove would hold out."

"Perhaps so." Jean-Luc yawned, and shifted in his chair. "Used to be I wouldn't sleep until the start of gamma shift, maybe. Sometimes not even then."

"And you were up ninety minutes before alpha, every morning." Will smiled, remembering.

"Those were enjoyable, though, those ninety minutes," Jean-Luc said, as he gazed at Will.

Thirty-five years later, Will still blushed, and Jean-Luc laughed, softly. "I have a better idea, _mon cher_," Jean-Luc said.

"Better than what?"

"You asked me if I would still share my future with you," Jean-Luc said. He didn't add "such as it is;" they both knew it hung there, in the air, better to be left unsaid.

"I did," Will agreed.

"Cochrane Day is almost here," Jean-Luc said. "Are we required viewing, at some celebration, somewhere?"

"There's an invitation to San Francisco," Will admitted. "The _Enterprise_ will be home."

"Will she?"

"Yes," Will said, "but she's not our Enterprise."

"No," Jean-Luc answered. "Not the D or E."

"There's an invitation to Paris as well," Will said.

"We could stay with Rose."

"We could." Will stretched. "I was under the impression that the kids wanted to come here, though."

"_Mon Dieu_, Guy," Jean-Luc said, horrified, "not a party. I'm not up to a fucking party."

Will laughed. "No Captain Picard Day?"

"I got you back for that one," Jean-Luc said.

"You did," Will acknowledged. "What were you going to say, Jean-Luc?"

"You wanted to go away," Jean-Luc reminded him, "for a few days."

"Yes," Will said.

"Somewhere with good music, I suppose."

"There's good music everywhere, Jean-Luc. You only have to find it."

"True." Jean-Luc was quiet, and then he took Will's hand. "Would you say yes to me again, if I asked you?"

Will felt himself stop breathing.

"Breathe, Will," Jean-Luc said gently.

"If you asked me what, Jean-Luc?" He knew he was being disingenuous.

"Will you marry me, Guillaume?" Jean-Luc asked. "Even with all this? Knowing what is coming?"

"I'm already married to you," Will said.

"I'm asking you to marry me again," Jean-Luc said. "Pick a place you'd like to go. And then retake our vows. Just the two of us. No kids, no party."

"We'd need a witness," Will said.

"Anyone off the street could be a witness."

"You promised me flowers and dancing, once."

Jean-Luc smiled. "You had the flowers and dancing, I seem to recall."

Will grinned. "I did, didn't I?" he said. "You surprised me; I hadn't expected it." He looked down at his hand, at the ring he still wore. "Yes," he said. "You could ask me every day, Jean-Luc, and the answer will always be: Yes."

"Even when you find me on the deck of the boatshed?" Jean-Luc asked. "Even when we have to discuss end-of-life care?"

"Yes," Will repeated. He stood up, and offered his hand to Jean-Luc. "Even. In spite of. Doesn't matter. We'll put another bed in here, and move the couch."

Jean-Luc rose as well, and took Will's hand. "_Je t'aime, mon_ Guy," he said.

"_Je sais_," Will said. "_Je t'aime aussi_, Jeannot."

Will led Jean-Luc inside, and closed the French doors, and then wrapped Jean-Luc in his arms.

"The children," he said, "will be upset."

"Too bad," Jean-Luc answered. "Come to bed?"

"Twice in one day?" Will said, amused. "However did I get so lucky?"

"And you call me an asshole," Jean-Luc replied. "Yes or no, Mr Riker?"

"Oh, yes," Will said. "Definitely yes, Mr Picard."


	5. Chapter 5

5.

It had been an exhausting day, although honestly it had been no busier than usual, what with lectures and labs and the monogram she was writing; but the truth was that it had been exhausting because she had comm'd her father and it was his "Well, I can't do this!" which had looped around in her mind all day. It was, she thought, as close as he'd ever, in all the years she could remember, come to complaining. It wasn't like him. And it worried her.

So she was glad to leave the research centre, especially as she was meeting Grae for supper at the little Café de Féliu where they often met, but she was still more pensive than usual when she sat down at their usual table.

She kissed Grae and sat, and took a sip of the wine he'd already poured for her.

"Did you order already?" she asked.

He smiled and said, "I would never presume to order for you, Dr Riker-Picard."

"I order the same meal every time," she told him, laughing.

"The truth is, Rose," he answered, "they saw me come in and started cooking our meal right away."

"Well, it's the only place in Paris where you can get paella," Rose said, "even if it isn't as good as my father's."

The waiter, whose name was Quimet because he was from Girona, arrived at their table with an appetizer of pickled eggplants and calamari, and, as Grae had predicted, explained that the paella would be ready in a few minutes.

She sipped her wine and picked at her food, even as she could feel Grae watching her.

"Not hungry?" he asked, finally.

She shrugged. "It isn't that I'm not hungry," she answered slowly. "It's just that I feel as if I shouldn't be here – and," she added, "I don't mean that I shouldn't be here with you. It isn't about us."

"You are taking the shuttle to Barcelona in the morning?" Grae's eyes, when he looked at her, were dark and serious.

"In the morning, yes," she answered.

"And you're thinking you should have left today, after work?" He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. "What changed?"

"I spoke to the Admiral this afternoon," she answered. She always called him the Admiral, even to Grae; he was Admiral of the Fleet. To call him "Dad" just didn't seem appropriate, somehow.

"Rose," Grae said. "You can tell me, you know. I'm not Starfleet."

Of course he wasn't Starfleet. She'd met him on a civilian-led research project in which Starfleet had an interest. He was fascinated by Starfleet, and by her life in Starfleet, both as an adult and as a child, but he would not have lasted one day in the 'Fleet, and Rose found herself strangely comforted by that.

"My father – the Ambassador," she clarified. "He somehow managed to vanish, and the Admiral couldn't find him. He – the Admiral - sounded overwhelmed. I don't think I've ever heard him sound that way before."

"Is he all right? The Ambassador, I mean."

"Yes," Rose answered. "He was found, eventually, although how he got to the boat all by himself at his age….The Admiral was upset, but really upset, Grae. Not in his usual way. Oh, I don't know how to explain it."

Grae said, "Your father has a larger than life personality, but his being upset today was not part of that."

Rose glanced at him in surprise. "That's exactly it," she said. "He blustered, a lot, especially when we were children. He's quick to laugh, and he's even quick, in a way, to cry. But this was different. He sounded – frightened. I've never heard him frightened, Graeme. Never, not in all our years in deep space."

"There is," Grae said gently, "one last shuttle tonight. Shall we go?"

"You've never met my fathers," Rose said.

"No," he agreed, "but I was going to meet them at the anniversary party. If you're this worried, Rose, you shouldn't be alone." He paused and then he said, "Have you spoken to your brothers?"

Rose shook her head. She let go of Grae's hand as Quimet appeared with the paella, and she was quiet as the waiter went about plating their meal.

"I thought," she answered, "that I would wait until I'd spoken to Dr Montalvo, before I called Sascha and Jean-Guy."

"Eat, Rose," Grae said. "Even if we take the shuttle tonight, you have time to eat."

"Stop bossing me," Rose responded, but she was smiling.

They ate quietly, and Grae poured her another half glass of wine. "Sascha is in San Francisco, isn't he?" Grae asked.

"Yes. Jean-Guy is at school at Oxford."

"He's the musician, right?"

"Right." Rose smiled. "Sascha is at the Academy, teaching for a semester."

"The Admiral is a musician, isn't he?" Grae asked. "I think I remember you telling me that."

"He is. A jazz musician. He has a studio at the University. He's been working on a major piece, but you had better not tell anyone that," she said. "He doesn't know that I know."

"Okay," Grae agreed. "Why would that be a big deal?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "He doesn't want anyone to know how seriously he takes his music," she answered. "Or something like that. He never has, apparently. And then there was always this business of not wanting to outshine the Ambassador in any way."

"Will it upset them if we show up on their doorstep ahead of time?" Grae asked, as they were leaving the café.

"There's a place for Starfleet personnel to stay in the city," Rose said as she climbed into the air taxi. "You can stay there, if you're with me."

He grinned, and kissed her. "I am with you," he said.

"Can you pack in five minutes? We won't have much time."

"Of course," he answered. "I am the king of last minute conferences, you know that."

"_Bien_," Rose said. "Will you wait for us while we get our bags? We need to get the Starfleet shuttle terminal."

The driver nodded. "_Oui, mademoiselle_," he answered, surprisingly, in French. "_Vous ětre français_?" he asked.

"_Oui_," she replied. "_Mon père est français, né en LaBarre_."

"_C'est bon_," he replied.

"Her father is Ambassador Picard," Grae said, smiling.

She comm'd the Admiral when they arrived in Barcelona, and was just a little bit abashed to find that she'd wakened him.

"Rose," he said sleepily. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said. "I didn't think you'd be asleep this early. Is Papi okay?"

"He's asleep," the Admiral said, tersely, "as was I. Yes. Tired, a little bruised, but okay."

"I just wanted to let you know that we came down early," she told him. She was trying not to grin, because his hair was sticking straight up, and he'd put his glasses on, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas. "So I'm already in Barcelona, at Starfleet housing, and I will meet you in the lobby of Starfleet Medical at 0830."

He rubbed his head, which made his hair stick up even more. "Who's we?"

"Grae," she answered. "Graeme."

"He came with you?"

"Yes," Rose said. "I'd like you to meet him."

Her father was silent. "I can hardly see how this is an appropriate time, Rose," he said.

"The whole point of me staying the weekend was to talk about the anniversary," Rose replied. "So I brought Grae, to help with the planning."

He shrugged. "I'm glad you're here," he said, finally. "I will see you in the morning."

"Dad?" She hesitated.

"What? I don't want to wake Papi." She could hear the irritation in his voice.

"Are you okay? I'm worried about you."

He sighed. "I'm fine, Rose," he answered. "Good night."

"_Bon nuit_, Daddy," Rose said. She looked at Grae. "Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea," she said.

"What wasn't?" Grae asked. He pulled her to him, and brushed her errant curls off of her forehead before kissing her, lightly, on her cheek. "Bringing me?"

"No," Rose said, snuggling into him. "Inviting half of fucking Starfleet to their wedding anniversary."


	6. Chapter 6

6.

"Will."

"I'm asleep," he said, pulling the quilt up. He could feel Jean-Luc sliding his arm underneath him and then pulling him close.

"Why are you so far away?" Jean-Luc said in his ear. "Come here, you."

For a moment it felt as if he were back on the Enterprise, Jean-Luc's arms around him, spooning him, kissing his ear and the back of his neck. "No problem with your memory this morning," he murmured, deciding simply to enjoy the attention.

"I thought," Jean-Luc said, his breath warm on the back of Will's neck, "that if there were this handsome fellow in my bed, I should just take advantage of it."

"Whether you knew him or not," Will replied, and it felt so good to laugh in the morning.

"Either way, it's a winning scenario for me," Jean-Luc agreed.

Starfleet sent an air car with a driver, an ensign who looked so young it was hard to believe he'd graduated from grammar school, let alone the Academy. Because they were going to Starfleet Medical, Will was in his admiral's uniform, and the ensign stood at attention so smartly as he opened the door for them that Will thought the boy's spine might snap.

"Were we ever that young?" Jean-Luc muttered as he slid, somewhat awkwardly, into the air car.

"I'm still that young," Will answered, smirking, which Jean-Luc chose to ignore.

"Sir," the ensign said, "I am to escort you and Ambassador Picard to Dr Montalvo's office."

Will didn't answer, and Jean-Luc said, "There is nothing wrong with Admiral Riker's memory, Ensign. We can certainly find our way to Montalvo's office without your help. We have been there often enough."

"Aye, sir," the ensign said.

There was an uncomfortable silence. "What's your name, son?" Will asked, finally, as they entered the city.

"Locarno, sir."

"How'd you end up here?" Will glanced at Jean-Luc.

"Languages, I guess, sir," Locarno said. "Communications at the Academy. Xenolinguistics."

"Admiral Riker is quite proficient in Klingon," Jean-Luc remarked. "And Betazoid."

"Just not Catalan," Will said, laughing as Jean-Luc rolled his eyes. "What I meant was, Ensign, how'd you end up as our detail? Who'd you piss off?"

"Piss off, sir?" Locarno skirted the Ramblas effectively, and headed towards the grounds of L'Hospital de Sant Pau, where Starfleet Medical had been built.

"Don't be disingenuous," Will said. "Driving two old men to the doctor and then bringing us to his office. Whose bright idea was that?"

"Will," Jean-Luc said, placing his hand on Will's knee. "It's not the boy's fault."

"No," Will agreed. "Certainly it isn't - that this office is a day late and a dollar short."

Locarno pulled the air car into VIP parking, receiving the salute of the guards and put the Admiral's flag on the windscreen as he parked.

"Sir," Locarno said, opening the door for Jean-Luc first, and then for Will. "I asked to, sir. It's an honour. Sirs."

Will grinned. "That changes everything, then, doesn't it, Ambassador Picard?" he said. "Lay on, Macduff."

"I don't think, Admiral Riker," Locarno said, quietly, as they walked to the main entrance, "it is appropriate for me to fight you. Sir."

Will chuffed in surprise, and Jean-Luc said, "Finally, Mr Riker. Someone who understands Shakespeare. Admiral Riker has been misinterpreting that particular quotation, Mr Locarno, for almost forty years."

"Surely not forty, Mr Picard," Will objected.

"Close enough," Jean-Luc retorted.

"You've done it now, Ensign," Will said, his tone conversational, as they entered the lobby of Starfleet Medical and watched almost everyone straighten his spine, "He is sure to give you the list. Every insult to Shakespeare, and Ovid, and Sophocles, and Aristophanes, and any other "es" that I have perpetrated in forty years."

"There is no list," Jean-Luc said, shortly, "as you well know."

"Cicero, and Caesar, and Dante, and Aeschylus, and Marlowe –"

"William."

They stopped at the fountain, where a certain young woman in science blues was giving them a familiar grin; the ensign, Locarno, glancing from Will to Rose and then hiding his own.

"Yes?"

"Shut up," Jean-Luc said, and Rose burst into a peal of laughter as she wrapped herself around him.

"I do regret I taught you that phrase, Jean-Luc," Will said, enfolding Rose in a hug of his own. "Hello, Rosie," he said gently, bending to kiss her on the cheek. "You look well." He gave a cheeky grin to the solemn-looking young man in civilian clothes waiting to be acknowledged. "Love seems to be good for you."

Rose rolled her eyes at Grae, and said, "Graeme McKean. My parents. Ambassador Picard. Admiral Riker."

Will extended his hand to the young man, and was pleased to note there was no pretense in his handshake. Just firm and dry – no nerves, Will thought, and then he smiled – perhaps this was a fellow who could handle their Rose. The young man took Jean-Luc's hand and said, "Honoured to meet you, sir," to Will, and then, surprisingly, "_Je suis très heureux_, Ambassador," to Jean-Luc.

"_Je suis ainsi_," Jean-Luc replied, and then he took Rose's hand. "You are looking well," he added. "Come to lecture me about wandering off, have you?"

"_Absolument_," Rose said. "For all those times you scolded me for disappearing on the ship."

"I'm afraid your scolding didn't work," Grae said, as they walked to the lift. "She still has a tendency to simply vanish."

"She is," Jean-Luc said, glancing sideways at Will, "her father's daughter."

Will protested, "I haven't disappeared in years."

Jean-Luc's smile was warm. "I suspect I've given you enough reasons not to," he said.

Will was easy-going. "I suspect so," he agreed.

Rose rolled her eyes again, and said, _sotto voce_, "We're in _public_. _Please_."

The lift appeared, and they trouped in. "Three," Will said, and then, grinning broadly, he remarked to Jean-Luc, "For some reason, Jean-Luc, she still thinks sex is only for the young."

There was silence, Will noted with satisfaction, with Rose dying in the corner and the two young men trying not to laugh.

"Then we must be getting younger every day, _mon cher_," Jean-Luc answered mildly.

"Well, you know what they say," Will continued, the doors to the lift opening, "you're only as young as you feel."

"And you always feel so good," Jean-Luc said, his lip curled upwards just a bit.

He was always so much better at control than Will, because Will, in looking at Rose's face, was trying not to explode with laughter.

"Are they always like this?" Grae asked Rose; even though he too was trying not to laugh, he could certainly empathise with her embarrassment.

"Yes," Rose said, and she sounded so miserable that Will immediately felt bad.

He put his arm around her, and said, "I'm sorry, Rosie. We should be more dignified, I expect," realising of course that at her age, and in uniform, walking with parents' whose fame had always overshadowed her childhood; well, maybe teasing her in public was unfair. Dignity was so important at that age, Will thought, remembering how uptight he had been as a lieutenant and then lieutenant commander on the _Potemkin_. He glanced at Jean-Luc, who, despite his illness, was still as sensitive as ever in assessing Will's moods.

"It was my fault," he said now, to Rose. "Sometimes it's difficult to remember how fragile one is at your age."

Rose sighed. "I'm_ not_ fragile," she muttered, but she was smiling, at least.

They'd reached Montalvo's waiting room, and Will walked up to the petty officer to sign Jean-Luc in.

"Picard, Jean-Luc," Will said to the PO, "for Montalvo."

"Aye, sir," the PO said. "It shouldn't be long."

"I would hope not," Will said, and returned to sit beside Rose and Jean-Luc.

"I suppose," Will said thoughtfully, but then he saw the look in Jean-Luc's eye and thought better of pursuing that particular thought, "we should decide where we're taking you for lunch."

Rose glanced at him sceptically and then said, "There's the _comida_ in the Gotico."

"You mean Albert's place?" Will asked. "Yes, he'd be glad to see you again, Rose."

"Doesn't it depend on whether this young man is permitted to drive us to lunch?" Jean-Luc said. "After all, his orders could be to take us straight home."

Locarno said, "My orders were to be at your disposal, sir."

"Why not Al Mar, Will?" Jean-Luc asked. "We've not eaten there in a long time."

"Are you sure?" Will asked, his voice low. "It'll be busy."

"I feel fine," Jean-Luc said, and there was just a hint of steel in his voice.

Will assessed the situation, and then he smiled and said, "Of course. It's a celebration, after all. We have Rosie home, and we get to meet Graeme. Perhaps," he added, glancing at Locarno, "Ensign Locarno could see if we can still get a reservation?"

"Yes, sir," Locarno said. "I'll be happy to, sir."

"Good," Will said, and then he saw Lt Hamilton in the doorway.

"Ambassador Picard," Hamilton said, glancing at his padd. "How are you, sir? Let's take your vitals."

Will stood, making sure that Jean-Luc could take his hand if he needed to, but Jean-Luc showed no evidence at all of his injuries from the day before.

"Rose," Will said, "are you coming?"

"Yes," Rose said, her earlier embarrassment forgotten. She was Dr Riker-Picard, now.

"I'll wait here," Grae said quickly, "with Mr Locarno."

Will nodded. He walked closely beside Jean-Luc, and said to Hamilton, "This is our daughter, Dr Rose Riker-Picard. Rose, this is Dr Montalvo's nurse, Lt Hamilton. Rose will be accompanying us today, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Hamilton agreed.

They followed him down the corridor, Will resting his hand lightly on Jean-Luc's arm.

He found himself sitting on the verandah outside their bedroom, a drink in his hand, scrolling through his mail but not really concentrating on much. He was supposed to have gone to his studio, but he'd cancelled, and there were a few complaints about it from his students. The day had been hot and still, as he'd predicted, and it looked as if it would be hot again tomorrow; the sky was opaque, the sea green.

Rose and Graeme were in the garden still, with Jean-Luc. He'd made a light supper, after their heavy lunch, of _pasta alle vongole_, with a small salad of mixed greens, and they'd eaten outside. Mercè and Pau and Laia had come over for coffee and drinks and dessert, and they'd been invited to their home for dinner tomorrow. He didn't know how Jean-Luc was holding up. He'd managed as long as he could, and then he'd made some excuse about expecting a communication from Starfleet, and had disappeared, not to his office, but to their bedroom.

Montalvo had agreed that it was time to get a "minder," as Jean-Luc had so artlessly put it, and it turned out that Locarno had already been chosen by Commander Steen for the job. Steen had sent Locarno to drive them to see if they could all get along, Will supposed, and it set his teeth on edge. He'd always thought of himself as a man who was relatively easy to get along with. His temper, which occasionally had flared when he was First on the _Enterprise D_, had mellowed after his illness and its treatment, and while he was still hard on those beneath him, it was because he expected them to perform, and they generally did. His crew on the _Titan_ had been just as close to him as he'd been with Jean-Luc on the _Enterprise_, and he thought it was therefore a reasonable assumption that he was easy to get along with.

He simply could not stomach Commander Steen. The man was an asshole. He was prickly, and just hovering above stupid, and he didn't have an ounce of common sense. Of all the stupid, underhanded things – that poor kid Locarno.

Well, it was done, and it would only be worse for Locarno if he pulled strings to make it undone. And Locarno seemed like a nice kid. Jean-Luc seemed to like him, especially since he knew his Shakespeare. Well, of course he knew his Shakespeare, Will thought, which was probably why Steen chose him.

The scan hadn't been good. And they'd had the talk, the reason why Rose was with them. Jean-Luc didn't want extraordinary measures taken, to prolong his life. He didn't want Will to be "stuck," as he put it, taking care of him, when Will had more important work to do. Hospice was mentioned, and agreed upon. It wouldn't happen in six months; it wouldn't even happen in a year. But he'd hoped for ten years or maybe even fifteen. He'd be lucky if he got five.

He was going to be alone.

And he was going to be alone for a long time. While it was true his mother had died at a very young age – thirty-seven – it was because of a random deadly virus she'd picked up as the leader of an away team. Auntie Tasya, his mother's aunt, had lived until she was almost one hundred thirty; his mother's family was long-lived. Both of his father's sisters were still alive and doing well. He was only seventy-two. He might live twenty or thirty years, without Jean-Luc.

It had never occurred to him. Because of his illness, he'd always thought he'd die first, even though Jean-Luc was thirty years older. Not because he wanted to die, not anymore, but because there'd been so much damage done.

It was stupid. He should be in the garden with them, not up here, sulking, or whatever it was that he was doing. Feeling sorry for himself. Not feeling sorry for Jean-Luc, mind you, or for the kids, who would be losing their father, but for himself.

"You used to go to the observation deck," Jean-Luc said from the doorway.

"It's good to have Rose here," he answered. "I like Graeme."

"May I join you? Or is this a party for one?"

"A pity party, you mean?" Will asked, and then instantly regretted it.

"Is that what this is?" Jean-Luc placed his hand on Will's shoulder, and then Will leaned his head against him.

"Yes," he said, his voice muffled by Jean-Luc's sweater.

"Oh, Will," Jean-Luc said. "We dealt with your illness. We will deal with mine."

"Mine wasn't terminal," Will said.

"And we didn't know that at the time, did we?" Jean-Luc asked. He bent down and kissed Will's hair, and then took his seat beside him. "What are you drinking?"

"Vodka," Will said.

"I shall have to tell Mr da Costa," Jean-Luc said, his lip turning slightly upward.

"Don't you dare," Will returned.

"Mister" da Costa was Will's therapist, the one he saw for his yearly check-ups, when he went to San Francisco, his original psychiatrist, Dr McBride, having long since retired to Betazed.

"You realise," Will said, after a moment, "what Rosie has done, don't you?"

Jean-Luc sighed. "Invited half of fucking Starfleet to our anniversary party? Yes," he said.

Will had taken a sip of his drink, and subsequently spit it out, all over himself. "I've been a bad influence on you, Captain Picard," he said, laughing.

"Indeed you have, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc answered. "We can slip away the day before. They can have their party. They'll still have a good time."

"I thought officers in Starfleet didn't sneak around," Will said.

"I am retired," Jean-Luc replied. "I can do whatever sneaking around I wish to do."

"Did she tell you when the boys were coming home?" he asked.

"Sunday, I think," Jean-Luc answered.

"I liked your idea better," Will said.

"I did too."

"Are you cold? Shall we go in now?"

"Yes." Jean-Luc stood. "We could still do what we planned, Will. I don't want to spoil Rose's party. But we could leave, after."

"Won't you be too tired, after all the company?" He stood too, and stretched.

"We could conceivably bring Mr Locarno with us," Jean-Luc suggested.

Will was quiet. "You wouldn't mind that?"

"No," Jean-Luc said thoughtfully. "I think it would reduce the stress on you. I think it might make things more manageable."

"I love you," Will said.

"I _am_ cold," Jean-Luc told him.

"Then let's go in." Will wrapped his arm around Jean-Luc's waist, and they walked inside. "Shall I help you in the shower?"

"Do you mind, Guy? I'm quite tired, all of a sudden."

Will pulled Jean-Luc close, and kissed him, softly. "Of course I don't mind," he answered. "I'll shower with you. Then into bed, yes?"

"Yes. It's been a very long day."

He helped Jean-Luc undress, and then washed him, gently, in the shower, taking care not to hurt his bruised skin. He put Jean-Luc to bed, and then said, "I'll say good night to Rosie and Graeme for you, all right?"

Jean-Luc had already closed his eyes. "Yes, that's fine."

Will wrapped his robe around himself, and slipped his sandals on. "Lights, twenty percent," he said.

When he got to the door, Jean-Luc said, "William."

"Yes?"

"It's time to tell them."

"Tell who what, Jean-Luc?"

"The children," Jean-Luc said. "About our wedding. About the Valentine's Day ball. Before I forget. They don't know about us, Will. We should tell them."

Will was silent, considering. "Of course they know about us," he said.

"Oh, they know about the Borg," Jean-Luc agreed. "They know about the _D_. They know about Q, and about our adventures. But they don't know about _us_. And they should." He paused, and then he said, "Rose is going to marry Graeme, Will. So it's time to tell them."

"She told you that, without me there?" Will was hurt.

"No," Jean-Luc said, exasperated. "Of course she didn't. But it's obvious," he added. "And – I don't think I'm wrong about this – "

"You don't think you're wrong about what?"

"She's pregnant," Jean-Luc said.

"What?" Will shut the door.

"I'm sure of it." Jean-Luc sat up.

"We're going to be grandparents?" Will grinned. "But I'm still a kid."

"Ha," Jean-Luc said.

"I'll tell them goodnight, then," Will said, turning back to the door.

"Guy."

"There's more?" He didn't want to sound irritated, but he was feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed.

"She needs to know."

"Rose needs to know what?" Jean-Luc's tone had changed, and Will was afraid he knew where this was going.

"Dr McBride said there was a genetic component," Jean-Luc said. "To your illness. And to what your father was."

"I don't think this is the time," Will said.

"It is precisely the time," Jean-Luc replied. "Whether she's pregnant now, or later, she needs to know. Sascha and Jean-Guy need to know. And I want for us to talk about it, about what happened. About your illness. Before I forget, and there's no one left who knows who you are. What you survived. And before you argue with me, Guy," Jean-Luc said, "think about it. Who will take care of you, when I'm gone? You still need care. They need to know."

"I don't need to be taken care of," Will said.

"Won't you? When you lose me, Will, you will lose it all, all over again."

He was silent. Would he feel all those losses, in losing Jean-Luc? Wasn't that why this was all so hard? Because the fear underneath was that he would lose himself as well?

"Guy?"

"Okay," Will said. "Okay."

He opened the door.

"You're just saying good night?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Yes."

"You're coming back? You're not angry, Will?"

Will's heart was breaking. "Of course I'm coming back," he said, gently. "I sleep here too."

"Of course you do," Jean-Luc agreed. "I'll just close my eyes and wait for you, then."

"Okay," Will said. "I'll be right back. I won't take a minute."

"I'll hold you to that, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said, sliding back down under the covers and closing his eyes.

"I expect you to, Captain Picard," Will said. He closed the door, and went downstairs to say good night to Rose and her fiancé.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

It was typical, he thought, of his brother to get the time wrong, or the place wrong, or the day wrong, or any of the other myriad of variables in putting together a simple trip from Oxford to Barcelona. It wasn't that hard. Take the train to London. Take the shuttle to Paris. Meet your brother at the Starfleet shuttle terminal. Show your identification. Fly to Barcelona. How difficult could it be, to someone who had been raised in deep space on the ship where his father was captain?

He paced the confines of the officer's lounge. If Jean-Guy didn't turn up on the next flight from London, they would miss the last flight from Paris to Barcelona, which meant they would have to spend the night at the Starfleet dorms, because Rose was already in Sitges for the party. He was missing an entire week of classes for this extravaganza, which he wouldn't have minded, he told himself, except that he knew – he _knew_ – that Papi hated these things, and that with his health being so fragile, it would most likely be a recipe for disaster. The thought of his father – dignified, intelligent, proud – being put on display even as he was losing everything that he'd held important – the truth was, he was furious with Rose. Of all the stupid things to be genetic, he fretted, surprise parties was perhaps the most stupid ever.

"Are you late for a conference, Commander?"

He stopped pacing in front of the windows, and turned around, immediately bringing himself to attention when he realised the officer addressing him was a captain.

"No, sir," he answered. "Not a conference."

The captain gave him a wry smile. "Relax, Commander," she said. "Sadly, anxiety will not change the situation, whatever it is. Tamsin Diako." She offered him her hand, and, surprised, he took it.

"Alexandré Riker-Picard," he said. "And you're right, of course, sir. My irritation will not make my brother arrive on time."

If she recognised either of his fathers' names, she didn't say. "Your brother is Starfleet as well?" Diako asked. Then she said, "You can stand down, Commander. You're not on my bridge, even if you are in uniform."

He relaxed, but only slightly. He'd been accused, once, by Jean-Guy, of most likely standing to attention in his crib, and he reckoned it was as accurate a description as any. He preferred the Ambassador's reliable formality to the Admiral's spontaneity – he'd never really been able to figure out what the Admiral had wanted, and when. It had been a source of frustration for him, and irritation to the Admiral.

He did smile, however. "No, sir," he replied. "My brother is a student at Oxford University."

"Really?" Diako asked. "Sit down, Commander Riker-Picard, you're making _me _nervous, and I don't have a nervous disposition."

"Sir," he said, and he sat across from the seat she'd taken.

A shuttle had landed – not Jean-Guy's – and the room was suddenly filled with a clutter of officers. Several acknowledged Captain Diako politely, and then a familiar voice said, "Sascha! How are you?"

He glanced up and then rose quickly to receive a brief hug; it was Captain DeSoto, long-time friend of the Admiral's.

"I'm well, sir," he answered. Then he nodded towards Diako and said, "Captain Diako. Captain Rowan DeSoto."

"Of course," Diako said, also standing. "Good to meet you."

"I've got to run," DeSoto said, "my connection is tight. How is the Admiral?"

"The same," he answered. "Working on something big, Rose says."

"Well, that's exciting," DeSoto answered. "And the Ambassador?"

He shrugged. "Holding his own, for now. Rose is there."

"I'm off to London," DeSoto said, "but I will see you in a few days."

"Sir," he answered.

"Good to meet you, Captain," DeSoto said, and walked briskly away.

He waited a moment, for Diako to sit, and then sat down, trying not to fidget. Jean-Guy's shuttle was due to land at any time; he could only hope that his brother was actually on this one.

"You are Admiral Riker's son?" Diako asked now. "And Ambassador Picard's? I did wonder."

"Yes," he said, and then he smiled, briefly. "It can be a challenge," he admitted.

"Not many places you can go where someone doesn't know one or the other," Diako said.

"Except Oxford," Sascha answered. "For all of his faults, my brother has managed to avoid that issue."

"The one who's late?"

"The one who's always late," he said.

"The family rebel."

"In a way," he conceded.

"Does that make you the family good boy?" Her look was frank.

"No," he answered, after a moment. "I think that role belongs to my sister, the doctor."

"Interesting. Not the good boy, but not the rebel. The responsible one, though, I'd bet."

He didn't say anything. It was beginning to feel, in a strange way, like a job interview. The shuttle from London was announced, and he stood, turning towards the arrival gate.

"I'm the oldest," he answered, looking back to Captain Diako. "So the responsible one, yes."

"Ambassador Picard is ill, I understand," Diako said, but she said it in a way that was compassionate, somehow.

"Yes," he replied. "It's why the Admiral stepped down."

"Why he left the _Titan_, you mean," Diako said.

"He keeps his hand in. I think he's more interested in music, these days."

"He does a bit more, I think, than keep his hand in," Diako said.

He glanced at her, sharply. Then he said, "You were waiting for me."

"You'll be finishing your classes at the Academy at the end of this semester," Diako said thoughtfully. "Feel like coming to space?"

Mutely he took the chip she handed him.

"You're a little high strung, Commander," she said. "But I understand that Admiral Riker was anxiety-driven, in his posting as Robert DeSoto's First."

"You already know Captain DeSoto," he said, feeling stupid.

Diako grinned. "Here comes your brother," she replied. "Let me know, once you get settled in Spain. I'm in London for three days, and then back to San Francisco."

"Yes, sir," he said. "But -"

"I know," Diako said, laughing, "the party is this week. Have fun with that. Tell your father I said hello."

"Which one?"

"Riker, of course," she said, walking away.

Jean-Guy walked up, carrying an instrument case and a duffle, and looking as if he hadn't slept or bathed in three days.

"Have we got time to find some food?" he asked. "I'm hungry."


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Will decided to pilot the air car to the shuttle terminal in Barcelona himself. He supposed he could have sent Locarno, seeing how late it was – especially as he'd gotten somewhat used to retiring early with Jean-Luc – but it _was_ late, and the last shuttle in, and he didn't think a kid Locarno's age should be ferrying around old men as part of his job description. Why stress yourself out to join the Academy, graduate tenth in your class (he'd looked Locarno up), just to become a glorified babysitter? Besides, he wanted to see the boys. Rose and Graeme were perfectly capable of taking care of Jean-Luc for an hour or two, especially since Jean-Luc would already be in bed.

They'd had a good day. They'd gone down to the marina and Pere had showed them how far he'd gotten on readying the boat for the season. Will had rented one of the smaller tourist boats and had taken them out on the water, the day hot and still, no good for sailing but cooler, certainly, off shore. There were mackerel running and they saw porpoises; a very good day. They'd had lunch at the local _comida_ in town, and had returned home happy. He'd been waiting for Rose to make her announcement – about Grae, about her pregnancy – but she'd said nothing. Still, she ate very little, so perhaps Jean-Luc had been right.

He wasn't sure how he felt about being a grandfather, which, he supposed, was stupid. He'd been the one who'd wanted children, after all. It had taken some time – and some therapy – to get both of them – but especially Jean-Luc – to the point where investigating the method of the two of them having children was even a consideration. Then they'd had to wait until life in the Federation had calmed down – it wasn't as if the _E_ was the right place for a child. Still, they'd been supported by everyone in their attempt to create a family, and when he'd held Sascha for the first time, it had been a confirmation, of sorts, that he'd been right. Remembering those months when Sascha was little made it hard for him to reconcile how he and Sascha had become – it wasn't estranged, but there was a barrier between them, that had started when Sascha was an adolescent and now – well, now it was more of a gulf, wasn't it?

A grandchild. Suddenly, he hoped it was true. The excitement of a new member of their family would be good for both of them. He hoped it would be a girl, and that she would look just like their Rose.

Sliding once again into admiral's parking, he stepped out of the air car and entered the shuttle terminal, relatively quiet on a Sunday and holiday evening. The duty officer came to immediate attention when he walked in, and he nodded at her.

"The shuttle's on time?" he asked.

"Aye, sir. ETA five minutes, sir."

"And Lt Commander Riker-Picard and Jean-Guillaume Riker-Picard are both on the passenger manifest?"

"Aye, sir. Was there a reason one of them wouldn't be, Admiral?"

He grinned. "I know my younger son, Lieutenant," he answered. "Getting him to an appointed place at an appointed time is often an issue."

"Coming in now, sir," the lieutenant said as he walked away.

He was waiting at the gate for them, Sascha looking as if he'd just put his uniform on instead of having what had likely been a twelve or fourteen-hour day, and Jean-Guy looking – like Jean-Guy, he supposed. Like something the cat had dragged in, and that reminded him of Data's Spot and he smiled, hugging both of his sons, the one slightly stiff, and the other in need of a bath. Children were weird, he decided, as he wasn't exactly sure how he and Jean-Luc had managed to produce the three different people they had.

"Your flight was okay?" he said, glancing at Jean-Guy's instrument case.

"Yes, sir," Sascha answered.

"I'm glad to see you made it," he said to Jean-Guy.

Jean-Guy shrugged. "I had stuff to do," he answered.

Will glanced at Sascha, who rolled his eyes, and then he said, echoing Jean-Luc, "Indeed. It might have been polite to let your brother know ahead of time."

Jean-Guy grinned. "It might have been, yeah," he said.

Will shook his head and walked out, the boys following. He smiled; he would have to stop thinking of them as "the boys."

"Would you like me to drive, sir?" Sascha asked when they reached the car.

He wouldn't take offense. In fact, he thought, he'd try harder to give credit as due to Sascha. After all, he was probably exhausted, but he was thinking of _my_ exhaustion, Will thought, when I don't do a damned thing anymore.

"Sure," Will said. "Thanks."

He walked around to the other side and squeezed himself into the passenger seat, which of course was where Jean-Luc sat. He powered the seat back so he wasn't curled up on himself and didn't say anything when Sascha had to move the driver's seat forward. Jean-Guy took up the entire back, having kept his instrument with him.

"Which horn is that?" he asked, looking back as they pulled out of the terminal parking.

"Triple," Jean-Guy answered. "I've a concert in two weeks. Britten."

"I presume you'll bathe before then?" Will asked.

Sascha snorted, and Will shot him a warning look.

Jean-Guy sighed. "Of course I'll bathe before then," he said. "It's in two weeks. That's two baths."

"Don't be such a smart ass," Will answered, but he was grinning. "You did bring clothes? For the party, I mean?"

"What party?" Jean-Guy asked innocently.

"The surprise party the three of you have planned," Will answered. "Because, in the interest of not stressing Papi out, you will be required to cut your hair, and trim your beard, and bathe, and put on semi-formal clothes that actually fit."

"These fit," Jean-Guy said, surprised.

"If you're an exhibitionist," Will returned. "Are you?"

Jean-Guy shrugged. "I keep growing," he said, as if that were an explanation of everything – the lack of bathing, the unkempt hair, the fact that his trousers were indecently too tight.

"So no replicators and no shower facilities at Oxford," Will said. "Maybe you should transfer here."

"Not everyone was born wearing a uniform," Jean-Guy muttered.

"How did you find out about the party?" Sascha asked, glancing at Jean-Guy.

"It's something I would have done," Will admitted, "at Rose's age. Just how many people did she invite?"

"I'm not sure," Sascha answered cautiously.

"Half of fucking Starfleet," Jean-Guy said cheerfully, "is what I heard."

He'd sent Locarno home, wherever that was, and kissed Rose good night, and seen that the boys were settled in, Jean-Guy in his own room and Sascha in the guest room. He climbed the stairs up to their bedroom, and it occurred to him that perhaps he should investigate installing a lift – or perhaps they should think about moving down to the first floor. It would mean losing the view, but, as he paused to survey the staircase and its location, it might be better than having to tear apart the centre of their house.

He opened the door to the room quietly, not wanting to wake Jean-Luc. Locarno was a good idea, he supposed, but the reality of the situation was only now beginning to sink in. Locarno was only one person, and he couldn't expect to be on duty for twenty-four hours; he would have to have rest breaks, and meals, and days off, and leave. And he was a specialist in languages, not in medicine, and the truth was, after reading over the medical reports that Rose had given him; they would need a nurse probably within the year. He would have to go into the office, and he would have to meet with that idiot Steen, and he would have to bring the medical reports, and maybe Dr Montalvo –

"Will."

He'd been standing, stupidly, by the door. He shut it now, and answered, "Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He crossed the floor and then hit his knee on the dresser. "_Fuck_," he exhaled.

"Lights, thirty percent," Jean-Luc said, and Will could _hear_ him rolling his eyes. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No," he replied, and then he said, "_Fuck_," again, rubbing his knee.

"You could have turned the lights on when you came in, you know," Jean-Luc told him, sitting up.

He straightened himself, trying not to swear again. "I thought you were asleep," he answered.

"I was waiting for you," Jean-Luc said reasonably. "Do you need ice?"

"No," Will said shortly, "I do not need ice."

Jean-Luc said nothing, and he crossed into the head. He stripped out of his clothes and took a quick shower, ignoring the bruise swelling on his knee. Ten minutes and he was drying off, and putting his pyjamas on, and brushing his teeth.

"You're limping," Jean-Luc said.

"I'll live," he answered. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Will you?" The irony was unmistakable.

"Yes." He slid under the covers, but didn't lie down. "Lights, ten percent," he said.

"How are the boys?"

"They thought you were asleep."

Jean-Luc was silent, and then he said, impatiently, Will thought, "Yes, I know that. How are they?"

"Sascha is the same," Will answered. "He's enjoying his classes."

"Does he know what he's going to do yet?"

"If he does, he didn't say."

"And Jean-Guy?"

Will sighed. "Jean-Guy," he said, "no longer believes in bathing."

Jean-Luc glanced at him. "He doesn't get _that_ from my side of the family," he said, finally.

Will gave a shout of laughter, and Jean-Luc said, "Shhh. You'll wake Rose."

"Are you suggesting, Jean-Luc, that dirt, like musicality, is genetic?"

"No," Jean-Luc replied slowly, "but, perhaps, unpredictability is."

"I've always been predictable," Will said.

"Have you?" Jean-Luc asked. "We shall ask your poker partners, when we see them."

"Did Rose finally confess to the party?"

"No," Jean-Luc answered, smiling. "She was betrayed by her intended."

"Does she know he told you?" Will couldn't help grinning. Rose on the warpath was a fearsome sight.

"Certainly not, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said.

"Coward," Will chided, gently.

Jean-Luc's dark eyes glittered. "Why don't you turn down the lights and come here?" he suggested.

"Lights off," Will responded, and then he reached for Jean-Luc. "Just remember we have a full house," he murmured.

"Immaterial," Jean-Luc answered, his voice low, "as we are certainly far too old to be having sex."

Will's laughter was quieted by Jean-Luc's kiss, and then he said, resting his head on Jean-Luc's chest, "I'm sorry."

"I know, _mon cher_," Jean-Luc said, his hand in Will's hair. "You sleep, now. It will be all right."

It won't, Will thought, but he closed his eyes.

He was running down the path behind the cabin, the woods dark and full of strange shapes. For some strange reason he was barefoot, and he kept stubbing his toes and stepping on brambles. There was no moon, and yet he could see the path in front of him, and even though he knew, he knew where the path would take him, and what he would find, he was compelled to follow it anyway, his chest pounding and his breath coming in harsh sobs. He could hear the water of the creek, and the rustling of night animals in the woods, and then he was standing on the bank, shivering with cold; but it wasn't Rosie who was in the creek, it was his father, his chest blistered and burned, smiling his tiger-smile and saying, "It's all right, son. You can let him go."


	9. Chapter 9

9.

Grae said, "Rose? Rose, there's something wrong."

She opened her eyes and it was as if she were a little girl again, half-asleep in a darkened room, listening to muffled crying and the low murmuring of Papi's voice. Where had she been, for this memory? And how could she have forgotten it? Somehow, maybe when she was nine, or ten, she'd figured out that underneath that larger-than-life personality, there was a brittleness, a fragility that was only dealt with late at night when their rooms were dark and her brothers were asleep.

It's why, she thought suddenly, she had become a doctor.

"I'm going to them," she told Grae.

She sat up and pushed the quilt down.

"Rose," Grae said, placing his hand on her arm. "Think about what you're doing."

She turned to him. "He is in pain," she answered, "and I am a doctor."

"We're both doctors, Rose," Grae said, taking her hand, "and your fathers are brilliant adults, who are well aware that there are two professionals in their house."

"They're not necessarily aware," she replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. "As soon as I'm in this house I'm their Rosie, and no one else."

Grae smiled. "You will find that true, I think, of _my_ parents' house," he said, also sitting on the edge of the bed. "It could be nothing. Shouldn't we just wait, to see if they'll send for us?"

Rose noticed that he'd turned her "I'm going" into an "us," and she sighed. "Graeme," she began. She thought about that little girl, lying in her bed, listening to the sounds of night coming from her fathers' room. "I can remember," she tried again, "listening to this when I was little. To the sound of him – the Admiral – crying late at night. He was trying to be quiet, and I can remember listening to Papi talking to him, and I would lie there in bed, and I would think that when I grew up I would make him better."

She looked at Grae. "I don't know if I can make him better," she said. "But I'm a neuro-psychiatrist, and I can try."

"But what if," Grae said, and he came round the bed and sat beside her, "what if they don't want your help? What if it's an intrusion? What if you embarrass him?"

She sighed again. "Papi is very ill," she said. "Oh, I know, he's holding his own. For now. But it won't be long, Grae, and you know that as well as I do." She leaned into him, and he put his arms around her. "He's been taking care of my dad for as long as I can remember. You haven't noticed, yet. You've only seen Dad, being careful with Papi. But – " She paused, and then she smiled. "Watch. He'll get into this weird headspace that he goes into – and you'll hear Papi, or me, or Jean-Guy, or Sascha tell him to breathe."

"What do you think he has?" Grae asked.

"I don't know," she said. "It can't be too terrible, or they would have forced him into a medical retirement. An anxiety disorder of some kind, would be my guess."

"Maybe they needed him," Grae suggested, "and so allowances were made that wouldn't happen for someone else. He is very famous, you know."

She rolled her eyes. "_Please_," she said. "Do you have any idea how many awards ceremonies I've had to attend?"

"What do you want to do, Rose?" he asked.

She thought she could still hear him weeping, and she slid out from Grae's arms and stood up. "I'm going to offer to help," she said. "That's all. Just knock on the door, and ask. If they tell me no, I'll go away."

Grae stood up and kissed her gently. "Just don't," he said, "upset yourself. There are the both of you, now, to consider."

"I don't think this mission is that dangerous," she said, grinning. She hunted for her med kit and found her tricorder. "We'll be all right."

She could hear Papi's low voice speaking something in French, but she could no longer hear the Admiral's weeping, and she hesitated, standing at their closed door. What if, she thought, Grae were right? What if her presence simply was an intrusion on their privacy? The thought that she could cause the Admiral embarrassment – she took a deep breath. The truth, she thought, was that children did this every day. They took care of parents who were aging, attending physical needs that might once have been an embarrassment but were no longer, simply because it had to be done. Her Papi's world was constricting and there would come a time when he would simply forget how to care for himself, and who she was, and finally, his own identity. As for the Admiral –

I am a doctor, she thought, and I have a patient who needs my help.

She knocked, lightly, on the door, and heard Papi's low voice say, "Come." She opened the door and poked her head in. The lights were on at about twenty percent; Papi had his arms wrapped around the Admiral whose face was buried in his pyjama top; he was trembling but no longer crying. "What can I do?" she asked, stepping inside.

"You can check his blood pressure," Papi said, and she was surprised by his use of his command voice, "if you have your tricorder with you. And you can help me give him his medication."

"Yes, sir," she said, before she realised it was an automatic response to his authority. She said, "Lights, thirty percent," and walked over to Papi's side of the bed. "Dad," she said. "Will you let me check your vitals?"

"I'm fine now, Jean-Luc," he protested. "I don't need my vitals checked, and I don't want any medication."

"William," Papi said with a finality that truly brooked no opposition.

"Shit," he responded, and he pulled away and sat up.

His face was tearstained and swollen, and Rose could see his hands were still shaking. "If you could move back over here, Dad," she said calmly, "I'll take your vitals and it won't take a moment."

He slid over to his side of the bed and she walked briskly over to him, and then ran the tricorder.

"I already know my blood pressure is up," he said irritably. "It always is when this happens."

"And what is _this_, Dad?" she asked. She glanced at his numbers; his blood pressure was high, but not alarmingly so. "Are you already taking medication for your blood pressure?"

"No," he answered. "My blood pressure is fine as long as I'm asymptomatic."

"And are you asymptomatic?" she asked. "And you still haven't told me what's going on."

"We were waiting for all of you to be here," Papi said. "We were going to ask for a family meeting to discuss your father's illness today." He reached out for Dad's hand and took it, squeezing it gently. "You need to know, because you won't just be dealing with my illness. You'll be dealing with his, too."

"I had one nightmare," Dad said, and she could hear the frustration in his voice. "One, Jean-Luc. It was a bad one, and it took me by surprise. This whole week –" He paused, as if he were searching for words. "This whole week has been very stressful. But we're doing what needs to be done, to manage the situation. I wasn't prepared for it, that's all. For the logistics of it."

"Will," Papi said, and then he sighed.

"It's all right, Papi," Rose said. "I've treated reluctant patients before."

"I am not," Dad said quietly, "your patient. I have my own doctor, whom I will speak to in the morning."

"Is Mr da Costa coming to this extravaganza of yours, Rose?" Papi asked.

"You mean the party?" She grinned, and put the tricorder down. "I believe he is. I'd have to check the list."

"You can talk to him when he's here, then, Will."

"I still don't know what you're being treated for, Dad," Rose said.

Dad swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. "PTSD," he said, standing. "I'm going to the head."

"You can bring the medication with you," Papi told him.

Rose watched as the Admiral stopped in the middle of the floor and stared at Papi, one Starfleet command officer to another, neither of them prepared to give an inch. It was an interesting glimpse into their relationship, she thought, one that was a series of compromises and command decisions between two men who had, at one point or another, commanded all of Starfleet. She'd always seen the Admiral as the one who backed down, but there was going to be no backing down here.

"And just which medication do you propose to give me, Jean-Luc?" he asked, and his voice would have been considered insubordinate if the other man had still been his captain. "I was unprepared for the imagery of the dream. I am cognizant of what it means. I am aware of the stress I am under, and the anxiety I am experiencing. I am not," and he began to count with his fingers, "having panic attacks, or flashbacks, or hallucinations, or dissociating. I do not need an anti-psychotic. I do not need more anti-anxiety medication than I am already taking. And I probably could have gone back to sleep, if this hadn't become a fucking three-ring circus." With that, he stalked into the head, and slammed the door.

"You did that on purpose," she said to Papi, laughing.

Papi shrugged. "Sometimes he just needs to be reminded of who he is," he answered.

"He's really angry," Rose said. She pulled the desk chair over, and sat beside the Ambassador.

"He'll get over it," Papi said succinctly. "He always does."

"How long has he had the diagnosis?" she asked.

"The diagnosis, or the disorder?" Papi straightened out the bedcovers. "Would you mind getting me a cup of tea?" he asked. "Seeing as how no one's going to bed anytime soon."

"Both," she answered. "No, I don't mind." She wished they'd installed a replicator in the bedroom, as most people had, but they were old-fashioned enough to insist on using a kitchen as opposed to replicators most of the time. She'd always thought that was an affectation on their part, when she was younger, until she'd realised that Papi had grown up in a household which had no replicators at all, and Dad had grown up in a tribal village which still ate animals for food.

"He was diagnosed on the _D_," Papi answered, "in the beginning of our relationship. And he's had the disorder most of his life."

"Oh," she said. She thought about that statement and what it meant. And then it was as if a light came on in her head and she thought, How could I have not seen this? And then, And I became a neurologist.

Grae said, "I thought, since everyone is up, tea might be appreciated," as he pushed the door open, carrying a tray with the tea service on it.

The Admiral opened the door to the head and said, "Why don't you wake up Sascha and Jean-Guy, and we can have the fucking family meeting now?"

"Don't be disagreeable, Guy," Papi chided. "Grae is trying to ingratiate himself into the family and is succeeding."

Rose stood up to help Grae, but wrapped her arms around the Admiral first. "Don't be cross, Daddy," she said. "You can get back in bed, and we'll serve you, and you and Papi can sleep in in the morning. There's nothing planned for either of you, except," and as she pulled away, she gave him her cheekiest grin, "figuring out how to get Jean-Guy to take a shower. Sascha, Grae, and I have work to do on the party."

He hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. "All right, Rosie," he agreed, and she could hear that his equanimity was back.

They drank the tea in silence, watching the dawn break over the sea. She put her cup down on the tray and said, "Who told you about the party?" She saw the Admiral glance at the Ambassador, and the two of them smiled, the kind of smile they'd been giving each other, she thought, for almost forty years.

"Apparently," Papi said, in that wry voice of his, "surprise parties are genetic."


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Rose, of course, had thought that she could convince Jean-Luc to go back to bed, after Graeme had gathered up the tea things and taken them back downstairs. Will saw no harm in letting her try, even though there was no way he was returning to bed either. Jean-Luc had been arising before dawn for over seventy years. "Sleeping in" was a phrase simply not in his vocabulary. Finally she gave up, and went to help Grae or some such nonsense. They were young and clearly meant for each other, and he knew only too well the tug of closeness that followed every movement away from the person with whom you were meant to be; he and Jean-Luc had played planet and satellite, orbiting each other, for almost forty years. It had been so easy on the _D_, after he'd recovered and they'd forged the boundaries of the professional relationship and the personal one; he'd spent so many hours on the bridge with the captain, or in meetings with the captain, or having drinks, in their later years on the _D_, with the captain, when they'd become friends; no one had questioned their closeness, the ways in which they managed to remain in each other's company while working on other things. He'd gotten the nerve, once, to ask Deanna what the crew thought about it, and then wished he hadn't; she'd given him that self-satisfied smirk of hers and informed him that the crew thought they were "cute." He had not given _that_ particular insight to Jean-Luc. On the _Titan_, he'd been the planet and Jean-Luc the satellite; that had been a little more difficult to negotiate, simply because as Ambassador, Jean-Luc was gone for weeks at a time, and when he returned from wherever the Federation had sent him, Will had simply wanted to hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on their quarters and vanish inside for a week. Or two. Still, they'd managed, and he could appreciate the way Rosie draped her fingers, lightly, over Grae's skin in a gesture that was achingly familiar.

He finished making their bed, and then opened the French doors to the verandah and stepped outside. Jean-Luc was still in the head, having assured him that he was perfectly fine to dress himself. He'd had two good days, having only a few lapses, and it was of course much too soon to attribute that to the new medication, but Will was quite aware that the excitement of the kids being home, and the stress of his waking from his old nightmare, would at some point take its toll. He leaned on the railing and sighed. The morning was a little cooler, and there was a smudge on the horizon that hinted at rain.

Rose hadn't been particularly forthcoming about the work she and Sascha needed to do, and his imagination couldn't picture the two of them working for long on the party anyway. Sascha was a details man, and Rose was all about the big picture; one would think that would lead to harmony and togetherness but what it had led to, when they'd been small, was tears and tantrums on Rose's part and sullen silence on Sascha's. However, Grae seemed to be a sensible human being, and perhaps his stabilising presence would be just what brother and sister needed to finish the organising of what Jean-Luc was now calling Rose's extravaganza. He had no idea where the venue was; probably the old Navy yacht club, he thought. As long as it wasn't in his home, he didn't really care.

He could feel that he was anxious again. Rose hadn't said when she and Sascha would be leaving, and he knew from long experience that when Jean-Luc said it was time for a family meeting, that meant within the hour; at most, two. Jean-Luc had run family meetings the way he'd run his staff meetings; on time; when needed; everyone had a say; and then the command decision was made. Everyone dismissed; go do your job. Somehow, Will thought, this particular family meeting was not going to fit into that particular model. And while he understood the necessity, especially after this morning, of speaking to Rose about his illness, he failed to see why it was required viewing for everyone. Yes, he'd had his old nightmare, and given the stress he was under, it wasn't surprising. Yes, it had shocked him when it hadn't been Rosie, or Jean-Luc, or even himself, in the creek, but his father. But he hadn't been weeping because he was frightened, or because seeing his father in the water in the same condition he'd been in right before he died (I shot him, he thought) had been horrifying; it was because of the truth of what his father had said. _It's okay, son. You can let him go._

He didn't want to let Jean-Luc go. He'd turned his head into Jean-Luc's chest and bawled like a baby because he knew it was the truth, that he would have to let Jean-Luc – his Jean-Luc, the man he'd admired and then loved for half his life – go. There would be another Jean-Luc in his place, a smaller, frailer one; one who wouldn't remember him; who wouldn't remember to touch him, lightly, on his shoulder; who wouldn't remember to brush what was left of his hair off his forehead; who wouldn't remember that there had been a time when a soft kiss on the back of his neck would lead to that act of fulfillment and completion he'd never experienced with anyone else. And then _that_ Jean-Luc would slip away, and he'd be alone. And so he'd wept, and he'd allowed Jean-Luc to hold him and comfort him the way he'd done all those years ago in sickbay, when it had been seeing Rosie in the creek that had set him off. It had been enormously selfish on his part, he thought, interrupting Jean-Luc's sleep, which was sure to lead to a return of the fog at some point today, and then interrupting Rose's, when she was newly pregnant. But he would take those strong arms around him, and the murmuring of French in his ear, and he would file it away in his cabinet where he'd only before placed the bad memories. This memory, at least, wouldn't need his key.

He heard the door open, and then he felt, rather than saw, Jean-Luc stand beside him. He could smell the soap Jean-Luc used, and the aftershave, a hint of spice and mint. He took a deep breath, breathing it in. He was being stupid, he knew, but he didn't care. He knew from his treatment that smells made the strongest memories. Besides, Jean-Luc would just think he was working on his anxiety.

Jean-Luc placed his hand, lightly, on Will's shoulder and squeezed. "You never told me who was in the creek," he said, his voice low.

Will wrapped his arm around Jean-Luc's waist and pulled him close. "Doesn't matter," he answered. "It was just one of those things."

Jean-Luc said nothing.

"Are you hungry?" Will asked. "I found some herring."

Jean-Luc made a noise that sounded like a cough. "Did you forget our daughter is pregnant?" he asked. "Do you want her to spend the morning in the head?"

"We don't really know that she's pregnant," Will said.

"Graeme rested his hand on her stomach," Jean-Luc remarked.

"Ah," Will said. "We can have the herring for lunch, I guess, when she and Sascha are out."

"Do we still have the eggs from Mercè? You could make a frittata, Will."

"I could," Will agreed. "I've got a few tomatoes, and some shallots. I think I have some cubanelles."

"I don't mind being sous chef," Jean-Luc offered.

Will said, lightly, "I love you, too." He kissed Jean-Luc's cheek. "I'm okay," he said. "I am, I promise. You can sit outside with Sascha and have your tea, or you can sit in the kitchen with me. I'll be fine."

"Then tell me who was in the creek," Jean-Luc said, "and I'll be less likely to continue to worry."

"It will upset you," Will said. "And I'm okay. And I will talk to da Costa. Today, if you want me to."

Jean-Luc looked up at Will, and Will could see that no matter how many reassurances he gave, Jean-Luc would not be that easily convinced. It was, he thought, a bit unnerving. He looked away, back out to sea.

"We could have the boat ready by the weekend," he said. "If the weather holds."

"And take our friends out?" Jean-Luc took Will's hand. "That would be nice, Will."

"It was saying I'd talk to da Costa, wasn't it?" Will asked.

"It's called overkill, _mon cher_," Jean-Luc said.

"It was my father."

Jean-Luc was silent.

"I was standing on the bank, and I was cold, because I was barefoot, and I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And I knew it wasn't the memory of finding Rosie, because I wasn't ever dressed that way. Not in September. So I knew it was just a dream…and then he rolled over, and he looked exactly the way he had when he died. With his chest burned. And then he said what he'd told me, then."

"When you were about to fall, you mean? He told you to let him go?" Jean-Luc asked.

He wouldn't cry. Just breathe, Mr Riker, he thought. Just breathe, because maybe, just maybe, he won't understand.

"No," Will said. "He told me to let you go."

"And so you shall," Jean-Luc said, "when the time comes." He squeezed Will's hand, and then turned towards the door. "But that time isn't now, Guy," he said. "So go wash your face, and let's have breakfast. And then," he added, opening the door, "we'll have our family meeting. And we will tell our children what they need to know, about your illness. And Rose will give us the good news. And then we shall throw Jean-Guy into the pond, so that he _has_ to take a bath."

Will wiped his face with his sleeve. "But that will kill my fish, Jean-Luc," he protested, "and I worked really hard to get those stupid fish to stay alive in the pond."

"You can afford to be just a little silly, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said.

Rose wanted to eat outside, because the morning had turned lovely; warm with a cooling breeze off shore, and the scent of the pear and the blood orange blossoms in the air. Grae, not surprisingly, turned out to be a whiz with a knife, and Will set him chopping shallots and cubanelles and dicing tomatoes, so that Jean-Luc could sit with the children and talk about the boat, and the weather, and, he hoped, their plans to go on holiday.

"Why do you cook?" Grae asked, and then he said, quickly, "I mean, Rose said you've always cooked, even when you were a captain."

Will glanced at the young man, whose face was flushed, just a bit, even though he was trying to hide it. He didn't answer at first, because he wasn't sure what the young man was asking. He slid the plate with the chopped vegetables into the skillet, having minced the garlic himself, and then added the herbs. He had a mug of coffee on the counter and he picked it up and sipped it. It was true that he and Jean-Luc had been the only male married couple on a ship, but that didn't really mean much, because, of course, any married couple running a ship was unusual. Captaincy often precluded having a family – it was the reason why Jean-Luc had been alone, all those years. Usually, a captain's spouse was a civilian – Geordi's parents had been a prime example of that arrangement – but it was still hard, even for a civilian, to try to raise a family in the 'Fleet. Their choices had been analysed to death, but somehow, they'd managed to make it work because they'd both run their ships as their family by choice. Everyone onboard had been involved in the raising of their kids.

He said, "If you could ask your Rose to come in here and help serve, that would be good. Everyone's breakfast will be hot, then."

"Yes, sir," Graeme responded. He walked to the door.

"You're not in the service," Will said, "so there's no real need for you to 'sir' me, you know. You can just call me Will."

"I could try," Grae said, "but when Rose calls you the Admiral…." He shrugged and went outside.

They were back in a minute, and Will plated the frittatas, adding to each plate the spicy red potatoes and thick slabs of fry bread that he'd made. He made sure that everyone had what they needed and then joined them outside at the patio table, refilling Jean-Luc's mug of tea before he sat down.

"I learned to cook," he said to Grae, after they'd finished eating, "because my mother died when I was a baby, and there was a period of time when I was six or so that my father stayed home, and we had no housekeeper. He hated to cook, except for one or two things, and he'd bought a replicator. But I missed cooking –" He stopped, because he could feel that Jean-Luc had taken his hand.

"Breathe," Jean-Luc said.

He breathed. "I don't want to do this, Jean-Luc," he said.

"I know, Will," Jean-Luc answered, "but you must. We must." He paused, looking at his hand in Will's, and then he said, "When are you and Sascha leaving, Rose?"

"The venue isn't even open until ten hundred," Sascha answered.

"Perhaps we can get a refill on your father's coffee. And Jean-Guy can clear, if you will help him, Grae. And then your father has a story he needs to tell."

It wasn't surprising, Will thought, that there was none of Jean-Guy's cheekiness now. After all, even Jean-Guy knew a family meeting when he saw one, and each one of their children had been raised in an atmosphere in which obedience to authority could save one's life. Jean-Luc continued to hold his hand, and he realised it was because his hands were shaking. He tried to still them, but then gave up.

There were things you didn't tell kids, he thought. Kids needed to know that the world was safe and their families loved them; that they could trust that the adults in their lives always had their best interests at heart. They could learn about evil in fairy tales and epic children's stories, in the mythologies of their parents' heritage, perhaps; in the retelling of _Egil's Saga_ or _Gilgamesh_. Even on a ship in deep space, they'd managed to give their kids that level of protection, before they were hold enough to realise that the story of Haman had an application to the real world.

The dishes were cleared, and Jean-Guy came out with more tea for Jean-Luc and coffee for him. There were things you didn't tell kids, he knew, but they weren't kids any more. Jean-Luc was right; they needed to know.

He sighed, and felt Jean-Luc squeeze his hand. He said, "I don't really know how to do this, or what to say. But Papi is right. You need to know about me – about my story – and you need to know about the illness I've had for most of my life." He paused, and then he said, "The truth is that Papi is one of the few people left who knows what happened. And one of these days he'll tell me to breathe, but he won't remember why."

"Oh, Will," Jean-Luc said.

"And you need to know why I have to be told to breathe." He'd said he would do it – he'd said he'd tell – and he would. Because he always did what he said he would do. "And why, Rose, you sometimes heard me crying at night, the way you did this morning."

Sascha said, "Dad. You don't have to do this. You have PTSD. We know. Rose told us."

He felt helpless, in the face of their wanting to help him. He could feel his words drifting away, to that space where they went and then he was left with only his old ten, and ten words would not be enough to tell this story. He hated this about himself, that he could order photon torpedoes to be fired, and he could lead an away team, and he could close the bulkhead on a crewmember because he could only save the ones he could save; but he couldn't do this. He couldn't look at their faces and change the way they thought of him.

He felt Jean-Luc's hand on his shoulder, with just the slightest bit of weight to it, that gentle pressure that told him he was no longer alone.

He said, "When I was a little boy, around six years old, I had a best friend, whose name was Rosie."


	11. Chapter 11

11.

He hadn't meant to go into his father's office, he thought, even as he found himself standing in the darkened room. And of course his father didn't call it his office, even though that's what it was; he called it the music room, to distinguish it from the room where he handled whatever it was he did for Starfleet. Still, Jean-Guy thought, this was where his father worked. There was a shelf of antique scores, and his father's padd, as well as a computer setup; there was the piano and a keyboard, and both of his father's trombones hanging on the wall. There was a music stand with sheet music, and a mug still half-full of coffee. The room was at the back of the house, so the window provided a view of the garden, but his father had the blinds pulled, and the room had an almost disused feel, as if he hadn't been in it for a while.

That was probably because he hadn't, Jean-Guy thought. He was too busy taking care of Papi, to work on whatever Rose had said he was working on. Jean-Guy knew from one of his friends in Barcelona that the Admiral hadn't been to his studio in over a week; that his students were concerned that he was in over his head, and that he would have to give the studio up. That, Jean-Guy thought, would be a shame, because his father was always at his best when he was teaching.

"Lights, forty percent," Jean-Guy said, and he opened the blinds, and then he opened the window and looked out.

The garden looked the same as it had two hours before, when they'd breakfasted on the patio, but of course, it wasn't. He didn't think he would be able to look at the garden in the same way again. It had been a happy place for him as a child, as he'd been maybe three or four when they'd started coming to Sitges for their annual holidays. The Admiral had taken the garden on, expanding it, adding the pond and the pool, the fruit trees and the playhouse, the shed. Jean-Guy remembered being so proud to bring his friends from the ship on their holidays (something even Papi had encouraged), to show them his bedroom overlooking the water and then to play in the garden with Rose and Sascha and their friends, who somehow, when on holiday, never seemed to object to playing with the "baby."

Now, the garden seemed – sad. His father had created this wonderful place for his children to play, a place that had seemed magical when he was a child, and it wasn't because his father was recreating a special place from his own childhood but because he was creating the one place he'd never had. It was, Jean-Guy thought, almost unbearably sad.

He turned away from the window and sat down at his father's piano. There was a score, clearly an orchestral score, on the bench, an honest old-fashioned _score_, handwritten, the writing precise and neat. He wondered where anyone found blank scores anymore, and so he opened it, thinking perhaps it was a transcription of an older piece of music. He didn't know why his father would want to do that by hand; there were thousands of archived scores – maybe even millions – just a click away. There was no title; no indication, other than the single word "symphony" to indicate which symphony this was or whose.

Jean-Guy couldn't remember a time when he didn't hear music in his head. His father had started playing games with him when he was very small, singing a pitch which he had to sing back, changing tempo and rhythm. Sometimes his dad would just sing notes; other times there were silly words. He remembered blowing on his father's mouthpiece; he remembered writing his first song, learning the notes and what they meant, how they felt when he wrote them down, what colours they were as he played them. His father had never really discussed music with him, other than suggesting which instruments he might play, and had seemed pleased when he'd picked his first horn. He'd never asked if his father heard music in his head the way he did; he supposed, looking at the full orchestral score in his hands that he'd been an extraordinarily self-centered child. The man who'd composed this symphony had incredible things to say, and yet he'd never once thought to ask. He thought about the story his father had told them in the garden, and he felt ashamed.

"Jean-Guy."

He didn't know how long Papi had been standing in the doorway, speaking to him. He put the score down and looked up at his father. He'd dressed himself with his usual precision and neatness and yet there seemed to be something off, and Jean-Guy, for a moment, didn't know what. Then he realised the buttons to the Ambassador's tunic were misaligned.

He stood up and said, "Here, let me do that for you," and rebuttoned Papi's tunic. The fact that his papi stood there and allowed him to redo the buttons without protest seemed somehow worse than if he'd gotten angry. He should have gotten angry. He should have told him to fuck off. Instead he stood there, and allowed Jean-Guy to redo his shirt.

"I thought you might like to meet Mr Locarno," Papi said now. "Mr Locarno will be working with me, and helping your father out."

"Okay," Jean-Guy said. He looked back at the score; brushed it with his fingers.

"Perhaps," Papi said, after a moment, "you should have gone with Sascha and Rose."

"I would have been a nuisance to them," Jean-Guy answered. "And Sascha doesn't really want to be seen with me."

"Maybe you should consider bathing," Papi said. "People might be inclined to be accepting of you."

He shrugged. "Appearances are deceiving," he answered. "What is clean on the outside might be filthy inside."

"A sophist's argument," Papi said. "What were you looking at?"

"This." Jean-Guy handed him the score.

"What is it?"

"What the Admiral has been working on," he replied. "Rose told me he was working on something big. She has no idea."

"Is it finished?" Papi asked.

"Mostly," Jean-Guy answered. "There are some sketched in places, still. The ending seems – uncertain, somehow. As if there were two separate ways it could go, and he hasn't decided which. But," he added, "I'm not sure I understand it, fully. It may be that the ending is supposed to be that way. I haven't had time to really study it."

Papi gave it back to him. "I didn't know he was working on something original," he said.

"He writes original pieces all the time," Jean-Guy said, feeling oddly defencive. "It's just that they're smaller, for ensembles, or combos, or they're vocal pieces. I heard a band do some of his work in London, a few months ago."

"But this is different?"

"It's a symphony," Jean-Guy said. "It's very old-fashioned. Lyric, in places. I don't know how to describe it. Shocking, I guess."

"Why would it be shocking to you, Jean-Guy?" Papi asked, and there was a gentle quality to his voice that made Jean-Guy just want to wrap himself inside his father's arms.

"Because I don't know who this person is," Jean-Guy said. "This morning I thought I knew my father. Then I find out that I have never known him. That he's someone entirely different from who I thought he was."

"You are growing up," his papi said, smiling, "and discovering that your parents are completely separate human beings from yourself."

Jean-Guy rested his head on his father's shoulder. "Is that all it is?" he asked.

"No, _mon cher_," Papi said. "You are shocked to your very core at what your father lived through. You – and Sascha, and Rose – have never experienced evil; you have never experienced the worst the universe has to offer. We have managed to protect you, although I'm not sure how. You don't know what to do with this information. You are afraid you'll never be able to look at him again, without hearing his voice describing what happened. I know, Jean-Guy. I remember."

"What do you remember, Papi?" He hated feeling this way, as if he were five years old again.

"Listening to your father describe what happened - far more than what he told you today and in far greater detail – as if he were right there, experiencing it as it happened," Papi said. "I'd been a captain for over thirty years at that point. I'd fought the Klingons, and the Romulans, and the Cardassians, and the Borg. I'd been tortured and assimilated. But I'd never experienced anything like listening to your father describe, as if it were happening to him in real time, how he was beaten and raped and tortured as a child."

Jean-Guy could feel that he was crying, and he tried to remember the last time something other than music had made him cry. Perhaps, he thought, it was his father's music that was the cause of the tears slipping down his cheeks and dampening his beard. He could taste their saltiness in his mouth.

"Why," he asked into his papi's shirt, "didn't anyone help him? How could no one know what was happening? How could you kill a little girl and get away with it?"

He felt Papi tighten his arms around his back. "There is much more to the story than your father has told you," he explained. "He told you this morning what he could. It exhausted him, physically and emotionally, to do so. But he didn't give you the information that we know about his father, about who his father was, and how his father could do what he did, and how his father spent his whole life doing what he did. Not just to Dad, Jean-Guy, but to other children too. You need to know it all – but Will can only tell so much at one time before it becomes too much. Too much for him to tell, and too much for you to believe."

Jean-Guy was silent and then he said, "Why do you need this guy named Locarno?"

"Because I am ill," Papi said, "which you already know, Jean-Guy, and the illness is progressing. Your father can no longer care for me by himself. It is making _him_ ill, when we need him to be strong."

"I don't want you to be ill," Jean-Guy said. "It's not fair." He knew this only made him feel even more like a little kid, but it seemed to him that it was true. It wasn't fair. He was only nineteen, and he wasn't ready to lose his father – either one of them.

"Perhaps I was very selfish," Papi said, "in not having children when I was young. But I didn't meet your father until I was much older, and truly, your father was the first person who brought up children to me whom I didn't run away from."

"That's stupid," Jean-Guy said.

Surprisingly, Papi laughed. "Indeed it was," he agreed, kissing Jean-Guy on the cheek. "Profoundly stupid. If it makes you feel any better, William thought it was profoundly stupid too."

Jean-Guy said, "Yeah, but that's one of Dad's words. He uses _stupid_ for everything."

"Ha." Papi gave a short bark of laughter. "Don't forget mad, and cranky, and –"

"Difficult," Jean-Guy finished, and he was laughing too.

"Are you going to tell him you've looked at his work?" Papi asked as they left the music room.

Jean-Guy shrugged. "Maybe after I've taken a shower," he said, "and made an appointment to cut my hair and trim my beard."

"You might ask Rose to take you shopping," Papi said, without missing a beat, "as I'm sure those trousers must be uncomfortable."

They walked into the kitchen. "Mr Locarno," Papi said, "My younger son, Jean-Guy. Ensign Locarno."

"Serge," Locarno said, extending his hand. "It's Serge. Good to meet you. The Admiral was telling me you're a musician too."

"I'm only a horn player," Jean-Guy said. "He's the musician."


	12. Chapter 12

12.

He heard someone open the door to the bedroom, and then step outside onto the verandah.

"Sir," Locarno said.

"Yes, Ensign?" He had his padd open, but he'd just been staring at the sea. There was weather coming; the wind had changed.

"The Ambassador wondered if you wanted something to eat," Locarno said.

Will felt himself smiling, as if it were an automatic reaction. "The Ambassador wondered if _I_ wanted something to eat?" he asked. "Or the Ambassador wanted me to make _him_ something to eat?"

Locarno was quiet and then he said, "Sir. After thirty-five years together, I expect you already know the answer to that question."

"I expect I do," Will agreed. "Tell him that I will be down in a minute."

"I think," Locarno said hesitantly, "he was concerned about you."

"I'm sure he was," Will replied. He paused, and then he said, "You're dismissed."

"Aye, sir," Locarno said, straightening. "Admiral Riker?"

He sighed. "Yes, Mr Locarno?"

"Is there something I need to know about this morning, sir?"

Will looked up at the - boy, really. He was probably Rose's age, maybe a little younger. Certainly older than Jean-Guy, but not by much.

"Commander Steen said I would be making sure that the Ambassador was safe," Locarno continued. "So that you could work. And that I was to act as your driver. But – " He hesitated. "I'm not sure what the parameters of this job are, sir. The Ambassador is currently with your son. I guess I need to know if that's all right for me to do, to leave him with your son. And he seemed – worried. And I wondered if I should be aware of how stress might impact his cognitive abilities."

Will closed down his padd, and rubbed his eyes. His head was beginning to hurt, a vague echo of the pain he used to feel when he was stressed. It is psycho-somatic, he told himself. The injury was healed. You've not had a concussion in years. The slight queasiness in his stomach as he told the children, this gentle throbbing of his head; it is all stupid. Stupid because of course he was feeling resistance to Jean-Luc's illness, and to the necessity of exposing himself – and their relationship – to their children. It seemed to him that resistance to losing your partner after thirty-five years should be completely normal. Stupid, then, to have to catalogue these separate instances – his one panic attack, when he realised Jean-Luc was gone; his nightmare, after reading the medical reports; his queasiness and headache – as symptoms of the illness. Each one, taken separately, was perfectly understandable.

Jean-Luc knew him better than he knew himself. So was he worried because of what might happen? Or because it was already happening?

"Sit down, Mr Locarno," Will said.

"Yes, sir." Locarno sat in Jean-Luc's chair.

Will glanced at Locarno and then turned his eyes back to the view. "Despite Jean-Guy's current appearance," he said, "he is competent to take care of his father, and to make him a meal, either from the replicator or from scratch."

"Yes, sir," Locarno said.

"I'm going to assume, that when you volunteered – or were volunteered – for this assignment, you researched the information available on Irumodic Syndrome," Will said.

"I did, sir."

"Then you understand," he continued, "that there is no cure for this disease. The neural sheaths are breaking down, and no amount of medication can keep that from happening. These medications can only alleviate some of the more egregious symptoms. They may prolong his life, a little, if that is what he wants, which it is not, Mr Locarno. What he wants."

"Yes, sir."

"He was a great man," Will said. "He knew more about Starfleet, and the Federation, in that brain of his, than anyone else. What's happening to him now – it's cruel. Callous. Evidence of a universe that could give a shit about any of us who live in it."

"I'm sorry, sir," Locarno said.

"Stress, fatigue, excitement – any extreme of emotion can impact his cognitive abilities. I love my daughter, Mr Locarno, but this party of hers is not one of her better ideas."

"And this morning, sir?" Locarno asked. "What happened that caused the Ambassador to be so worried?"

"Ah, fuck," Will said, and he stood up and leaned on the railing. "He called a family meeting, just like he used to on the _Titan_. And we all showed up, just as we'd been trained to." Will's smile was mirthless. "And I told our children about my illness, and why I have it, and what the symptoms are. I didn't tell them the details, Locarno, although Jean-Luc wants them to know the details. He wants them to know it all, every gory piece of it. Because almost everyone who was involved is dead, Mr Locarno."

"Does Commander Steen know you are ill, sir?"

"Steen? He wouldn't know his own name if someone didn't tell it to him every day."

Locarno turned away, and Will realised he was trying not to laugh. "Steen knows I took a partial retirement because I was injured on the _Titan_ and to deal with the Ambassador's illness. And that is all he knows. And," Will cautioned, looking directly at Locarno, "that is all he will ever know."

"Aye, sir." Locarno said, "Lt Riker-Picard has promised to go over with me things that I should know to help the Ambassador. I hope that you will do that as well, sir, even if my appointment was awkward."

"I will get with her and sort it out," Will agreed.

"Is there anything I should know about your illness, sir?"

"You don't give up, do you?" He didn't mean to come across as stern or overbearing; it was curiosity, he thought, that he felt. And a kind of understanding. He'd never given up either, even when it had seemed (too often) that he'd made a mess of things.

"No, sir," Locarno said.

For a moment, Will thought he reminded him of da Costa, and he grinned. "You will sometimes, Mr Locarno," he said, rising, "be expected to remind me to breathe." He opened the door, dropped his padd on the bed, and said, "I believe the Ambassador is expecting me to make him lunch. Are you coming, Ensign?"

He'd made simple sandwiches for lunch, deciding that the herring might be better used at another time, and then he sent Jean-Guy and Locarno to the market, as they were almost out of everything.

Locarno was not happy. "I am supposed to be with Ambassador Picard," he protested.

"I think," Will answered wryly, "that I can manage to be alone with the Ambassador for the hour or so that it will take you to shop without either one of us having a breakdown."

Jean-Guy said, "You'd just better say yes, sir, Serge. He won't give in."

"You will find that is excellent advice," Jean-Luc added. "Far better to agree with Admiral Riker than to oppose him. He has been known to get a little testy when someone tells him no."

Will opened his mouth to say something and then saw the look Jean-Luc gave him, and he closed his mouth without saying anything. Instead he said, "You have the list, Mr Locarno."

"Aye, sir," Locarno said.

There was a look, Will noted, that young Locarno gave Jean-Luc – somewhat conspiratorial, in fact – and Will wanted to grin, but refrained. Let them form an alliance, he thought. It will be good for Jean-Luc, to think that he is in control of everything again.

"So, Mr Riker," Jean-Luc said, still seated at the kitchen table, after the two young men had gone. "You have engineered time alone. Was there something on your mind?"

So far, Will thought, the disease did seem to be in abeyance. "I just thought that it would be good for the both of us to have some down time," he answered. "Rose and Sascha will probably be back in an hour or so, assuming they've stopped for lunch somewhere. And if I'm making a meal for six or seven of us tonight, we'll need something more than just a few herrings and some shallots. I can cook, Jean-Luc, but I'm not a miracle worker."

"Ha," Jean-Luc said. "We do have a replicator, you know."

"Yes," Will acknowledged. "And I'm willing to wager that the last time Sascha had real food was the last time he was home. And I'm betting that while Rose and Graeme might eat out quite a bit, and there are still places in Paris where you can get a real meal, their schedules make it difficult to have more than a decent meal or two a week…and as for Jean-Guy. I don't know what he's doing. Drugs, maybe."

"Ah, Will," Jean-Luc said. "You are too hard on the boy, I think."

"Am I?"

"What would you have done, _mon cher_, had you not been marked for Starfleet from the time you could walk? If you could have pursued music – or athletics?"

Will was silent. "I like to think I still would have had personal hygiene," he said.

"It's a philosophical statement he's making," Jean-Luc remarked.

"What?" Will was incredulous.

"What is clean on the outside can be filthy on the inside," Jean-Luc said, "or at least that is what he told me."

Will could feel his blood pressure rising.

"Perhaps it's a good thing you sent him to the market," Jean-Luc said mildly, but Will could see that brightness in his eyes again.

"You're laughing at _me_," he said, his voice rising, just a bit.

"You are rather predictable, you know," Jean-Luc pointed out, "and he's a little old to be sent to his room."

"He may be a musician, Jean-Luc," he said, finally, "but he gets that philosophical shit from you."

"And maybe," Jean-Luc agreed, "if my father hadn't been so dead set against my joining Starfleet, I would have gone to the University of Bologna and majored in philosophy and anthropology."

"And not bathed for weeks at a time," Will added, and he found that he was laughing, "or cut your hair, or trimmed your beard."

"Or wore trousers that actually fit."

They were silent, and Will could hear the birds chattering outside.

"You are still the bravest man I have ever known," Jean-Luc said, into the silence.

Will looked away, toward the back door.

"Rose will need our help, and Graeme's."

"Was it wrong of us, Jean-Luc, to name her Rose?" Will asked.

"No, William, it was not," Jean-Luc said.

"I never thought ahead, that she would have to know," Will said. "And even though she only knows a part of it –"

"She is," Jean-Luc interrupted, "a strong and wise young woman. You named her out of love, Will. And now she knows just how much love. In the end, that's all that matters."

"Is it?" Will asked. He could feel his hands were shaking, and he pressed them into his legs.

"Yes," Jean-Luc replied simply. "It is."

They sat, for a moment.

"I wouldn't mind resting, a little," Jean-Luc said. "Why don't you come with me?"

Will asked, "And do what?" because he was so far away, in a cabin haunted by monsters.

"You could lie down beside me and let me hold you," Jean-Luc said. "That's not an unpleasant way to spend an hour or two."

Will found his smile. "You are really too much, Mr Picard," he said, "but I do think I would like that."

Jean-Luc stood up, and Will took his hand, and they walked up the stairs to their bedroom together.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

Neither one of them said anything on the way to the venue, a place called Les Fonts, which included hectares of land on a bluff overlooking the sea. Sascha had remembered the place from a Starfleet ball that he'd attended, years ago, and when she'd investigated it, it seemed perfect. It had been the venue of a number of different resorts through the centuries due to its perfect location, and only the style of the buildings had changed with the times. The manager, an Argentinian named D'Onorio, had been very helpful, and while Rose couldn't say that she was looking forward to this meeting, at least she had hope that it wouldn't be painful.

Sascha had automatically taken the driver's seat, when they'd gone into the garage to borrow the Admiral's air car, and Rose felt herself rolling her eyes, but she didn't protest. She was still feeling a little queasy, and wondering if she should have skipped breakfast; besides, if "letting" Sascha drive meant she avoided his periodic bouts of sullenness, then she was happy to do so.

"You have the guest list?" he asked her, as they turned into the long drive that led to the venue.

She wondered if it were possible to have one's eyes roll completely out of one's head. Surely as a doctor she should have learned that piece of arcane information. She said, "Sascha. We split the guest list in half. I have my half and I've assumed you have yours. Mr D'Onorio should also have a copy of the guest list."

"Do we have a complete list of RSVPs?" he asked, as he glided in front of the venue. There was VIP parking, and he posted the Admiral's flag.

"Do we?" Rose countered, and then she grinned.

"There you are," Sascha said. "I thought perhaps being in love had changed you in some fundamental way, and I wasn't sure I liked it."

"You have always been an asshole, Alexandré," Rose said, "and I too am glad to see you haven't changed."

To her surprise, Sascha laughed. They walked into the lobby of the resort, and were immediately approached by a very well-dressed flunky, attracted no doubt by their contrasting uniforms of red and blue.

"May I be of assistance?" the flunky asked, and Rose felt her eyes begin to hurt.

"Of course," Sascha replied, and Rose had to stifle a grin as she recognised Papi's mild command voice being used. She felt sorry for the flunky. "Lieutenant Commander Riker-Picard," Sascha said, still pleasantly conversational, "and Dr Riker-Picard. We have a meeting with a Mr D'Onorio."

"If you will follow me," the woman offered, and walked toward a suite of offices.

Rose wondered where the facilities were. She was positive she should have skipped breakfast.

"Mr D'Onorio will be with you shortly," the woman told them, opening a door that led to a spacious but neutral office with an understated opulence which made Rose want to grind her teeth.

"I don't believe we have the time for that," Sascha said. "Our appointment is for now. If Mr D'Onorio would prefer to meet at another time, he can contact the Starfleet office in Barcelona."

The woman paled. "I'm sure that won't be necessary, Commander," she said, backtracking.

"Perhaps, Alexandré," Rose suggested, sliding into the role of good cop, "Mr D'Onorio is simply momentarily delayed."

"Of course," the woman agreed, taking the offering gladly. "We are fully committed to making the anniversary party the most special event of the year."

Rose decided that if the woman chose to offer one more platitude she would simply puke on her eight-inch heels. "I think," she said, laying her hand on her brother's arm, so that he glanced at her in alarm before he covered it up with their father's neutral expression, "I will use the delay to find the facilities."

"I will be more than happy to show you to them," the woman said quickly, and headed for the door.

Sascha mouthed something at her, but she was too eager to get away. In a way she was glad Graeme had asked to be dropped off at the small transport terminal in town. He would have been overly concerned, and Rose was not quite sure she wanted to make any announcements as yet. For one thing, it was simply too early. And for another, this was supposed to be about her parents' anniversary. It was not supposed to turn into some mawkish family drama.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked now. They were walking somewhat briskly down the tiled corridor. "I'm Eleni Pappas."

"Rose," she answered, hoping the facilities were not several hectares away. "Rose Riker-Picard."

"Here you are, Rose," Eleni Pappas said, turning down a narrow corridor. "I'm sure you'll find everything you need. Perhaps," she said, in a one woman-to-another voice, "you'd like me to find you something to settle your stomach? Something carbonated, maybe?"

"I will be fine," Rose said, firmly. "It's momentary, I'm sure."

"A few weeks of momentary, anyway," Eleni Pappas said, laughing. "Your husband doesn't know?"

Rose paled at the thought of Sascha as anyone's husband, and felt her stomach flip. "My boyfriend," she answered pointedly, "does know, and Commander Riker-Picard is my brother." She let that thought sink in, and then she added, "If you'll excuse me," and she pushed open the restroom door.

Her father was an excellent cook, and she'd had many friends when she was growing up who were envious because not only was her father the captain but he also could cook a meal (when he had the time), but his frittatas, while they'd tasted good in the morning, did not taste good on their return. She rested on her knees, trying to catch her breath, waiting for the stars to disappear, and when she was quite certain there was absolutely nothing left of her breakfast, she rose cautiously to her feet, leaning on the wall of the cubicle.

She sighed, because Grae had been right. She would need to see her doctor when they returned to Paris and get something to help her. He'd accused her of being self-centered, in her insistence that she could do this quite well on her own, without help. It was natural; it was normal; everything would be fine. She would watch what she ate and exercise, and take the vitamins, and leave everything else to nature as it had been intended. She stood in front of the sink and saw a young woman with dark curly hair and bright blue eyes that were ringed by purple circles and which were slightly puffy from lack of sleep. Her father's fair skin, which she'd inherited, was even whiter than normal. She didn't look well, and the truth was, she felt worse. She washed her face and hands, and wished she hadn't come in uniform. In civilian clothes she could have carried a bag, and could have applied at least a little colour to her face. She hoped that Sascha hadn't completely alienated Vicente D'Onorio, and she squared her shoulders and left the restroom, determined to get through the rest of the meeting with her dignity intact.

She was surprised to find Eleni Pappas waiting for her in the conference room that was empty of both D'Onorio and her brother.

"Mr D'Onorio has begun the tour," Pappas said in her cheery voice. "We can catch up to them, if you're feeling better."

"I'm fine," Rose answered.

"This way, then," Pappas said, and Rose followed her down one tiled corridor after another until she was led into the breathtakingly beautiful main dining room, with its dance floor and its dozens of French doors opening out onto the open-aired patio, two pools, the gardens, and the sea.

Sascha was standing by what was clearly the head table, which was spread with platters of appetisers and desserts, along with the main and side dishes. D'Onorio was opening several bottles of wine, including, Rose could see as she walked towards the table, her father's own label, Chateau Picard.

"Rose," Sascha said, coming over to her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she answered. "Just fatigue, I think."

He nodded, and said, "Mr D'Onorio thought we might like to sample the menu, and he's asked us to decide on the wines. I thought we should have champagne, for the toast, but there's a selection for the meal and for the dessert."

She thought perhaps she could look at the food, even if it were best that she didn't eat it, and she said, "Have you tasted anything yet?"

"I think," Sascha said, "that the Admiral will be satisfied."

"And have you decided on the wine?"

"We have several bottles open, if you'd like to taste," Vicente D'Onorio suggested. He was a relatively tall man, not as tall as the Admiral but taller than Sascha, and he had, despite his position, a kind face.

"I was waiting for you," Sascha said. "But perhaps you'd rather I chose?"

"Please," Rose answered. "Whatever you choose will be perfect, Sascha."

"In that case," D'Onorio said, "I will show you outside, where the dancing will be held, and then we can return to my office to go over the seating arrangements and to finalise the guest list."

"Yes," Rose agreed. "That will be good. I'd like to check on our guests' accommodations and we'll need verification of the shuttle arrangements from Barcelona."

"Of course, Lieutenant," D'Onorio replied. "Or is it Doctor? I've never been sure which is the correct form of address."

Sascha gave her one of his sly smiles, and she said, "Lieutenant in uniform, Mr D'Onorio, is acceptable."

As they followed D'Onorio back to his office, Sascha said, "You seem to have recovered, _Lieutenant_."

"You're still an asshole, _Commander_," she replied.

They were leaving the grounds when Sascha said, "You know that I've thought this was a stupid idea."

"You've made that abundantly clear," Rose returned, looking out the window.

Even though she'd grown up here, in Sitges, as much as she had on the _Titan_, she never got tired of the azure horizon of the sea. It was the one thing she longed for, being stationed in Paris. She remembered, oh, she must have been eleven or twelve, she thought, when she'd needed to ask the Captain for something for school (she'd called him the captain, then; they all had, even Papi, because of course, he _was_ the Captain), she'd been so frustrated because she couldn't find him. She'd found the Ambassador in his office, and even though he'd been clearly busy she'd had no problem interrupting him. She'd been bold as brass, she thought now, and looking at Sascha as he concentrated on piloting or whatever it was he was concentrating on, it was no wonder he was frequently irritated with her when they'd been children. With his impeccable sense of what was and was not appropriate, and her always breaking rules and simply not caring that she had, they were really chalk and cheese.

"What is it, Rose?" Papi had asked, looking up from his padd. She remembered he'd looked tired, but her memory simply glossed over whatever trouble had been brewing at that time.

"I need the Captain," she said, "and I can't find him."

Papi said, in that wry voice of his, "And I won't do?"

"Dr Sandoval said I had to get the Captain's permission," she answered.

"Ah," Papi said. "School-related. He's not in his ready room?"

She'd had the gall to roll her eyes, but Papi didn't mind. He said, smiling, "You are as incorrigible as the Will is, if not more. Try the observation deck –" He stopped, and rubbed his eyes. "No," he told her. "Today, you'll find him in the Arboretum."

"Why would he go there?" she'd asked. Papi had opened his arms, and she found herself wrapped inside them.

"You will have to ask him that," he answered. "But that is where you'll find him."

"Thank you, Papi," she'd said pertly, and wriggled out of his arms.

"Rosie," Papi said.

"Yes, Papi?" She turned around.

"Be gentle," Papi had said.

She hadn't, Rose thought, understood what he'd meant, but now, thinking about how badly she missed this, her sea, when she was in her flat in Paris; and having listened to that halting tale of horror at breakfast, she thought she finally understood. She'd found the Captain sitting on a stone bench next to the small water feature he'd insisted the Arboretum have, a little creek and a small pond with a waterfall. Was it reassuring to him, she wondered, to be able to look into the water and not see her namesake?

"Rose," Sascha was saying, his voice taking on a worried tone. "Rose?"

She turned to him. "I'm sorry, Sascha," she said. "Wool-gathering." She could see he didn't believe her, and she said, "You thought this was a terrible idea." It was the last thing she remembered hearing him say to her.

"Yes," Sascha said. "I still think it's a bad idea. I think Papi is too fragile for this, and now I think Dad is, too."

"But?" she asked. "Because I thought I heard a 'but' in there."

"But," Sascha replied, smiling, even though his eyes were still worried, "since we _are_ doing this, I think you've done a great job. And maybe it will be good for them both, to see all their friends. They are so isolated here."

"Yes, perhaps so, in retrospect," she agreed. "But I think Papi is secretly looking forward to it."

Sascha was quiet and then he said, "You were thinking about this morning."

"Yes," Rose said.

"I don't know how I feel."

They were coming to the _comida_, where they'd said they would meet Grae for lunch. "He hasn't told us everything," Rose said. "I don't think he's told us even a fraction of it. And I think he's censored it. I think – given that his symptoms have lasted most of his life – it was much worse than he's said."

"It wasn't bad enough?" Sascha asked, and Rose was surprised at the touch of bitterness in his voice. "He named you after her, Rose."

"Yes."

"Doesn't it bother you?" He parked the car, and posted the Admiral's flag.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "He named you after the doctor who saved him."

"I don't think that's quite the same," Sascha answered. He made no move to get out of the car. "I think," he said, "and I don't want to make things worse…but it might help me, anyway, and maybe it could help all of us…do you think he has a holo of her?"

She looked at Sascha and suddenly she thought, he's prickly and he's an asshole because he doesn't like how _much_ he feels. And it all made sense, somehow, how much he was like who Papi must have been before he met Dad, who, despite the horror of what had happened to him, still managed to wear his heart on his sleeve. She hoped that he would find someone. He would make a good father, she thought, because children didn't let you stay afraid to feel.

"I think you should ask him, Sascha," she said. "I think that might make his finishing his story easier for all of us."

He unbuckled his belt and opened the door. "Are you going to tell me what's going on with you?" he asked, his hazel eyes still worried.

She grinned. "You're going to be an uncle," she told him, "in about seven months."


	14. Chapter 14

14.

The sound of people downstairs roused him, and, for a moment, he simply couldn't place where he was. It was only a moment, though, because he heard Jean-Guy laugh, and then he heard Rose's voice, and he realised that the siblings and their other guests must all have converged on the house at the same time. Well, that was good, because the food would be quickly put away, and information about the venue shared, and perhaps Rose might reveal her pregnancy to her brothers. In the meantime he had the luxury of waking up slowly, stretching his legs and moving his head back onto his own pillow. He'd left one of the doors to the verandah open slightly, and he could hear the slow splatter of rain against the roof tiles and smell the sea.

"Are you getting up?" Jean-Luc asked.

"No," he replied. "Are you cold? I can shut the door."

"You could come back here, and then I won't be cold."

"I was just stretching," he said, and turned back to Jean-Luc. "You had a good sleep?"

"I hadn't meant to," Jean-Luc said.

"You hadn't meant to sleep?"

"Mmmh-hmm."

"I kept you up half the night," Will reminded him. "You were entitled to a rest."

"We both of us used to go days without sleeping," Jean-Luc remarked. "I don't think you slept for months, after that first time with the Borg."

"You could also sleep on the bridge, standing up," Will said, "in between phaser blasts."

Jean-Luc laughed. "From the days when I had a much smaller crew," he explained.

"You know," Will said, "if retirement is going to consist of lying around in bed with you in my arms, I think I could deal with it."

"Ha," Jean-Luc said. "I cannot imagine _you_ lying around in bed."

"I spent three months in bed, once," Will said.

"Not because you wanted to," Jean-Luc answered.

"No, I suppose not."

"Are we going downstairs?"

"Am I expected to cook for this crowd?" Will asked.

"You're the one who sent them for food," Jean-Luc replied.

"I bet Mr Locarno cooks."

"You leave poor Mr Locarno alone," Jean-Luc said.

Will quipped, "Are you trading me in for a younger model?"

Jean-Luc was silent. Then he said, and his voice was deceptively mild, "Is that what all this is about?"

He'd heard that tone of voice before. They didn't quarrel often, but when they did, the first salvo was fired in that tone of voice. He didn't say anything; there was nothing, really, to say. Instead, he sighed, not that it did any good. Jean-Luc was watching him, waiting for him to answer.

"It was a joke," he protested.

"Was it?"

"We have a house full of people," Will told him.

"Half of whom are related to us, and are quite aware that neither one of us is a saint," Jean-Luc said, and sat up. "You – and do not, William, deny this – were going to use something that you know damned well has not happened in twenty-five years to deflect from the one issue we need to discuss."

"And what issue is that, Jean-Luc?" he asked tiredly, also sitting up.

"Don't you dare play the martyr with me," Jean-Luc said.

"I am not –" He stopped. It was too much, this. He said, "It was just a dumb joke, Jean-Luc. Please don't make it to be more than that." He wanted to reach out and touch Jean-Luc's arm, lightly, reassuringly – it really had been a joke, hadn't it? – but Jean-Luc in this mood was quite capable of pushing him away.

"Twenty-five years ago I made a very bad choice," Jean-Luc said, and Will began, "Jean-Luc, please –" before he closed his mouth and looked away. "Look at me," Jean-Luc said, and Will did, because that was what he always did. "I nearly threw away everything we had, everything we worked so hard for."

Will said, "Don't."

"You, being who you are, forgave me and took me back," Jean-Luc continued, "but you are not, William, going to conflate what is happening now with what happened then. This is not my choice."

He said, desperately, "Jean-Luc, I never thought –"

"I am not choosing to leave you, Will," Jean-Luc said, gently.

"I know that –"

"I don't think you do."

What was there to say?

"I know you've read the medical reports," Jean-Luc said, "I'm not talking about your intellect. I am saying that, emotionally, I am abandoning you. Just like your father. Just like I almost did twenty-five years ago. But I'm telling you, William, that it's different this time. I'm leaving you, but not because I want to. And I'm sorry. I know it's hard for you, Will. But you promised me once – look at me – you promised me once that you wouldn't conflate your issues with me. Do you remember?"

"Yes," Will said.

"You chose to grow up, Will," Jean-Luc said. "And this is what happens, when we grow up. I'm not choosing to die, Will. I just am. And you have to realise that your abandonment issues should either be dealt with or go back in your file cabinet. Because I need you to be here for _me_. And there are three people – no, five people – downstairs who are going to need you to be here for them. And that's the choice _you _made, Will. When you chose to grow up."

"I don't want you to die," Will said.

"I know," Jean-Luc answered. "I don't want to die either. I don't want to die this way. And I don't want to leave you. Or our children. Or our grandchildren. But I am. And we just have to deal with it. _You_ have to deal with it."

"It's stupid," Will said, before he could stop himself.

Jean-Luc laughed. "Yes, I know," he said. "Your Jean-Guy told me exactly the same thing."

Will tried to smile. "Oh, he's _my_ Jean-Guy, now?"

"Even with his philosophical shit," Jean-Luc said. "Why don't you kiss me, and then go wash your face, and then let's go downstairs and feed all those hungry people who are waiting for the chief cook to appear?"

"All right, Jean-Luc," Will agreed.

They were all in the kitchen, drinking coffee (Sascha and Locarno) or wine (Grae and Jean-Guy); Rose seemed to be sipping water. The back door was open, and a light breeze was blowing in, the rain pattering on the patio tiles and the birds singing.

"Sir," Locarno said, standing. "The list was taken care of, and the food is stored."

"Thank you, Mr Locarno," Will acknowledged quietly. He still felt a little shaky.

"Do you want a glass of wine, Papi?" Sascha asked, also standing. "Dad?"

Will glanced around at everyone and then said, "Jean-Guy. You cut your hair."

Jean-Guy shrugged. "Mr Locarno thought my philosophical statement was stressing you out," he said. "So, yeah."

"I think it takes more than unkempt hair to stress me out," Will said mildly. "I don't suppose you bought a new pair of trousers?"

"That," Locarno said, "was part of his philosophical statement. He brought other clothes."

"Well," Jean-Luc remarked. "It seems you have been hoisted on your own petard, Jean-Guy."

Jean-Guy grinned, causing his older siblings to simultaneously roll their eyes. "It worked, though," he said.

"Indeed," Jean-Luc agreed. "Sascha, if you would pour me a glass of wine. Why don't we sit in the dayroom, and let our master chef have his kitchen."

"I'll just have a cup of coffee," Will said. "Yes, all of you. Out."

Rose said, "I'll stay and help, Dad."

"That's all right, Rosie," Will said, gently. "You go sit with Papi. Grae can be my sous chef again, if he doesn't mind." Then he said, "You are officially dismissed, Mr Locarno, unless you would care to stay for dinner."

"You should stay, Serge," Jean-Guy said. "You're the one who picked out the fish."

"I'm not sure –" Locarno began, but Sascha said, "The Admiral invited you to dinner, Ensign." "Then I'd love to," Locarno replied. "Why don't you let me be sous chef instead?"

Will glanced at Jean-Luc and said, "Your place is with the Ambassador, Mr Locarno – Serge, is it? Go, all of you. Graeme, if you don't mind, I could use your surgical skills again."

It was sorted, then, and Will gave a small sigh of relief when they'd all taken their various drinks and left the room. He went through the refrigerator, and quickly arranged a platter of olives and stuffed mushrooms and pickled eggplants for an appetiser, and sent Grae into the other room with it. He took his cup of coffee and sipped it, standing at the door, looking out onto the garden. It was hard to believe that it had only been this morning that he'd sat them down outside and told them about his Rosie.

"Are you all right, sir?" Grae asked.

Will shrugged. "You've been with Rose how long now?" he asked.

"Almost two years," Grae answered.

Will smiled. "Two years," he said. "There's a lot of stuff, Graeme, that happens, when you've been with the same person for thirty-five years. Sometimes that stuff gets stirred up again." He turned away from the door. "It will sort itself out. It always does."

"Rose thought maybe you'd been arguing," he said.

He finished his coffee. "You could hardly call it an argument," he replied. "Some things needed to be said. And they were. That's all. Certainly nothing to worry about."

"Rose," Grae said, "is having a hard time sorting out the doctor from the daughter."

Will grinned. "That's okay." He placed his cup on the counter. "Jean-Luc and I had a hard time sorting out our respective roles, too."

"Do you want another cup of coffee, sir?" Grae asked.

"It's Will," he answered, "and no, I'd better not. I understand Dr da Costa will be arriving tomorrow, and if he finds out I'm drinking caffeine, I'll never hear the end of it."

"You're not allowed to drink caffeine?" Grae seemed surprised.

Will glanced at him as he took the fish out of the refrigerator. "Hell, no," he said. "I've got an anxiety disorder. I thought you were a doctor."

"I'm a surgeon," Grae said.

"That explains it," Will said, laughing. He handed Grae a vegetable knife. "Chop away," he said.

It would be good, he thought, to welcome this young man into their family; he'd given him the onions, the garlic, the parsley, and the mint, and the young man deftly chopped or diced or minced, whatever he'd asked for. They developed a solid rhythm, working together, saying little except what needed to be said in terms of prepping the food – dredging the fish in the flour and lightly browning them, preparing the green sauce; quartering the potatoes and rinsing the spinach, toasting the almonds and soaking the sultanas.

He'd placed the sea bass, fileted and cut into steaks, lightly breaded, coated in the green sauce, into the baking dish and then into the oven. He'd steamed the new potatoes and shown Graeme how to prepare their sauce of butter, parsley, and mint. He'd wilted the spinach last, and then lightly sautéed it with the pine nuts, onion, garlic, and sultanas, and had sent Graeme for Jean-Guy to set the table. The rain had stopped, and the air was cool and still smelling of the sea.

"Where are we eating?" Jean-Guy asked, walking in.

"It will have to be the dining room," Will said. "Dinner is ready."

"I'll tell them," Grae offered.

"Ask Jean-Luc if he'll pour the wine," Will told him.

"Yes, sir," Grae answered, leaving the kitchen.

Locarno appeared. "I'll pour the wine, sir," he said.

Will set the baking dish on the stove. "Is he sundowning?" he asked quietly.

Locarno thought for a moment and then he said, "He's not really confused, sir. He's just fading, a little."

"He needs his medication," Will said. "If you could ask Rose to get it from our bedroom. And then you sit with him. I'll have Sascha take care of the wine."

"You aren't surprised," Locarno said.

"I'm surprised that I'm not confused," Will answered. "It has been a very long and very stressful day."

"Aye, sir," Locarno said.

Dinner was pleasant, Will thought. Jean-Luc wasn't really confused, only tired; he knew who everyone was; his answers were appropriate, if somewhat vague. His appetite was still good, and he'd taken his medication; he was genuinely enjoying the attention of the kids, as he always had.

Will permitted the kids, Sascha and Jean-Guy in particular, to clean up, because he'd noticed that Rose, too, seemed tired. Locarno offered to make coffee or tea for everyone, but Will turned him down; he had the dessert, as simple as it was, to give the finishing touches to, and he knew Jean-Luc would want his tea prepared correctly. In the coming days he'd show Locarno, but not tonight.

He let Locarno help bring out the desserts, served in Jean-Luc's godmother's crystal wine glasses, much to the delight of everyone, and then Sascha and Jean-Guy brought in the coffee and tea.

"Daddy," Rose said, really smiling, Will noticed, for the first time since he'd spoken to them in the morning, "thank you. Grae, you'll love this, it's my favourite dessert."

"I thought your favourite dessert was _crema catalana_," Will said, but he was grinning, because Sascha answered, "That's _my _favourite, not hers."

"They fight over dessert?" Grae asked, dipping his spoon into the mixture of wine-soaked strawberries and sorbet.

"They fight over everything," Jean-Luc answered. "They always have."

"Except me," Jean-Guy said. "They are a united front, where I'm concerned." He didn't sound particularly put out.

"That's because you are Papi's little angel," Rose told him, but she didn't sound particularly put out either.

Jean-Guy shrugged. "So?" he said. "Somebody had to protect me from you two."

"You never needed anyone to protect you," Sascha protested. "You got away with everything."

"How about the time when you and Rose tried to throw me out of an airlock?" Jean-Guy asked, smirking. "Or when you left me in a Jefferies tube? Or when you left me in engineering, and told me there was a warp core breach?"

"There were fifty people in engineering," Sascha said, "and not one of them was worried."

"Yeah? I was five years old. How was I supposed to know that?"

Will said, "Welcome to the family, Graeme."

"I am the middle child of four," Grae said, laughing, "and this all just sounds like home to me." He finished his dessert and said, "This was wonderful. What was it?"

"It's Italian," Will replied. "Macedonia di frutta. You can make it with any fruit, as long as it's fresh."

There was a comfortable silence, as Will sipped his coffee – the last cup, he thought, sighing, depending on when da Costa showed up. He could see Jean-Luc was tired, and he decided it was time to call it a night.

"You told Jean-Guy you were going to throw him out an airlock?" Jean-Luc said, suddenly, looking at Sascha.

Sascha said, "It was Rose, really –"

"You're the one who put him in the box," Rose said.

This time the silence was almost comical.

"You put my son in a box and told him you were going to dump him out an airlock?" Jean-Luc repeated.

"It was a long time ago, Papi," Sascha said. "We wouldn't have done it. We didn't do it."

"I might have done it," Rose confessed, "but Sascha chickened out."

"And you wondered, Serge, why I have philosophical statements to make," Jean-Guy said.

"Will."

The clouds had cleared and he could see the stars. He wondered where the _Titan _was. He'd continued to use the _Titan_ as his ship after he'd been promoted, and then again when he was Admiral of the Fleet, for those few years. Now the _Titan_ was somewhere out there in the Gamma quadrant without him. Most of the time, he didn't think about it. Most of the time he was busy, working on the special projects Starfleet passed his way; working in his studio. He thought about his music, untouched this past week, and the work he still needed to do on it, and then he thought about the frantic emails from his students, who were convinced he wasn't returning.

"Will?"

What would happen, he thought, if he just stood here, and pretended he hadn't heard? And then he laughed, because McBride was not around to prescribe _him_ respite care.

"There you are," Jean-Luc said. He was standing at the side of the bed with his pyjamas on, but his shirt was open. "I know you are still upset with me, Will, but for some reason I can't seem to – "

"It's all right, Jean-Luc," Will said, walking over. Gently he buttoned Jean-Luc's shirt. "If you start at the bottom one, Jean-Luc," he said, "like this, and then move up, one at a time…."

"I remember you teaching Sascha that way," Jean-Luc said, and he smiled, briefly. "I can remember how to do it but I just can't get my fingers to work that way."

"We will replicate you shirts with a velseam," Will said, "and then there won't be any problem at all."

"I suppose that will have to do," Jean-Luc agreed.

"You are tired," Will told him. "You'll feel better in the morning. Are you finished in the head?"

"What?" Jean-Luc asked, and then he said, "Yes. I think so. I took a piss, if that's what you're asking. And I believe I brushed my teeth."

Will took a breath, and then he said, "Let me help you into bed, then."

"All right."

He pulled down the quilt and the linens, and helped Jean-Luc lay down.

"We've come full circle, Guy," Jean-Luc said, as Will placed the quilt over him.

"Oh? How is that?" He walked into the head, and turned the shower on.

"Now you're the one giving the tuck-in service," Jean-Luc replied.

Will turned the shower off, and walked back into the bedroom. "And I'm doing it with far less grace than you ever did," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry, Jean-Luc."

"It's my fault," Jean-Luc answered. "I upset you, earlier. I'm the one who is sorry, Will."

"I know you are, Jeannot," Will said, understanding that the apology was for the original hurt, and not the evening's upset.

"You should take your shower." Jean-Luc closed his eyes.

"You said," Will began, hesitantly, "that you thought the kids should know about us. That it was part of telling them about me, and about what happened."

"Yes," Jean-Luc answered. "You will need to finish telling them, Will. You've only told about Rosie. You need to tell them about your father. Why it's important that they should know."

"There's too much to tell," Will said.

"I know. Come to bed, Will. We can talk about it in the morning, providing I remember who you are."

Will smiled. "You remembered me this morning," he said.

"Surprisingly."

"I'll come to bed."

"_Bien_."

Will stood up, and returned to the head. He stripped down and took a quick sonic shower instead of his usual water one, and then put his pyjamas on and slipped into his side of the bed.

"Lights, ten percent," he said. He turned to Jean-Luc and kissed his cheek. "Are you still awake?" he asked.

"Yes," Jean-Luc answered. "Have you forgiven me yet?"

"I forgave you a long time ago."

"You have always been my sweet boy, Will," Jean-Luc said.

"Did you know that Data made a recording of our wedding?" Will asked, pulling Jean-Luc close.

"What on earth for?" Jean-Luc asked sleepily.

"So we could show it to our kids," Will answered, "or at least that's what he told me at the time."

"How did he know we would have children?" Jean-Luc asked, looking up at Will.

"I'm sure," Will replied, "knowing him, he thought it was the only logical conclusion. Good night, Jeannot," he murmured, even as he knew Jean-Luc had already fallen asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

15.

There were no nightmares; no issues with his aging prostate; Jean-Luc slept soundly, barely moving. The house was, despite the seeming cast of thousands (And how long had it been since they'd had a full house? Years, it felt.), completely quiet, so that he heard the patter of the rain as it started again and the sound of two cats, fighting. On spring nights in the woods of his youth there would be snowy owls calling and foxes barking; wolves howling and the huffing of a bear as it trundled past. He didn't necessarily want to inhabit those woods this late at night, even for the memories of the sounds they made, and so he slid over to his own side of the bed and sat up. He glanced back at Jean-Luc to make sure he hadn't disturbed him, but it seemed that the medication at last was kicking in; Jean-Luc was snoring, softly, and Will grinned. Jean-Luc would be horrified that he'd been snoring.

He placed his bare feet on the cool wood floor and stood up, stretching. The chronometer said it was nearing zero-three hundred; he sighed, because Jean-Luc would wake just before dawn, as he always did, and that was barely two hours away. Still, lying in bed and tossing and turning would disturb Jean-Luc as well, so Will stood up, and stretched again, and walked into the head for his robe. Wrapping it around himself, he headed down the stairs, trying to be quiet as he passed by the boys' rooms. In the kitchen he replicated himself a glass of water, which he sipped at the back door as he watched the rain splatter lightly on the patio tiles and furniture. He finished his water and tossed it in the receptacle, and then tried to figure out what he should do. There was work, as always, which he'd completely neglected and which at this point he probably owed some sort of an explanation to HQ; he could probably work quietly in his office, at least emptying his inbox, without disturbing anyone.

He sighed. The truth was, his mind was spinning, never a good place for it to be, worried about Jean-Luc, and now worried about Rose, not just with her pregnancy but with how she was handling what he'd told her; worried about the damned party, because he didn't know who was coming, and he didn't know the dress code, and if he was supposed to wear his dress whites, as he wasn't even sure he could fit into them, and they certainly weren't pressed. And then what was Jean-Luc supposed to wear, and why would this be at night, when Jean-Luc got so tired so early….

Fuck it, he thought. It was too bad it was raining, because a long walk would shut his mind off, but he didn't feel like looking for his raincoat, an activity which was sure to wake one of the boys. So he shut the lights in the kitchen and walked quietly down the hall into his music room, turning the lights on at thirty percent, and then closing the door.

Someone had been in here, he noticed, glancing at the piano, and had been through his score, which meant it could only be Jean-Guy. Probably looking for some place to practise. He wasn't ready for anyone to look at this yet, and he wondered what his son had thought of it, as unfinished as it was. Well, it was a little bit unfinished; he had to work on that one section, with the woodwinds, and then he'd decided he wanted to remove that one echo of the motif in the horns. Keeping the score in his hands, he walked around and sat at his desk, frowning at the stale coffee he'd left there, days ago, it seemed. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, setting the score down. Deanna would have told him to do a grounding exercise, a habit he'd been remiss in of late. He could hear her voice in his head, reminding him how to breathe, going over the imagery of a grounding exercise, that one where he sent roots down into the ground and stabilised himself. He missed her. He missed himself, sometimes. Perhaps Jean-Luc had been right, in saying that he should go back to space, but who the hell would want an aging Admiral to interfere with them? He certainly remembered how he'd felt about most Admirals; dull and stupid and incompetent, not able to see past the regs or their own noses. He'd stay here before he'd ever give cause for someone to think that of him.

He should boot up his padd and at least look at his inbox. Maybe try to calm his students down, that he'd be in next week, after all the nonsense about the party had passed. And then he could feel his anxiety pooling in his gut, because he couldn't for the life of him understand how Jean-Luc had made the leap from a silly remark about Mr Locarno to what Will had always thought of as The Incident. Which was stupid, because of course it had been far more than just an incident; it had been a series of events that had hit him like a quantum filament. Jean-Luc was usually right – had he really so trivialised Jean-Luc's illness into just one more facet of his abandonment issues? Was he really that selfish?

"Dad," Sascha said. "Staying up all night and worrying is not going to help anyone."

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"No," Sascha answered. "I don't usually drink coffee this late."

"Really? I think I lived on coffee when I was your age."

"Everything's under control, you know," Sascha said. He walked in, and moved some discs off one of the chairs and sat down. "With the party, I mean. And I wanted Rose to tell you – she just had this idea in her head, about you and Papi seeing everyone."

"Is it?" he said. "That's good. Do I know what I'm wearing yet? Because I'm not sure I can fit into my dress whites."

"We'll sort it out tomorrow, Dad. It will be okay. The venue is great."

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Les Fonts."

"How did you manage that?" he asked.

"There are some people who thought you and Papi deserved it," he answered. "We'll make sure Papi's clothes are taken care of, too."

"He won't wear a uniform," Will said.

"He might, for Rose," Sascha answered.

"Is Rose ever going to officially tell us?"

Sascha blinked. "You know?" he said, finally.

"Son," Will said. "Neither one of us was born yesterday."

"She didn't want to be in the spotlight," Sascha explained. "It's your anniversary."

"Perhaps Papi and I would like to be able to share our news with our friends," Will pointed out.

Sascha shrugged. "You'd better talk to her, then," he replied. "I'm surprised she told me."

"You should go back to bed," Will told him.

"What were you and Papi arguing about?" Sascha asked.

"We weren't arguing."

"Dad. I wasn't born yesterday, either."

"Just stuff, Sascha," Will answered. "Old stuff. It wasn't really a big deal."

Sascha was silent for a moment, and then he said, "I remember it, you know."

"You remember what?" Will's voice was low.

"When Papi left," Sascha said.

"Your father never –"

"Dad," Sascha said, patiently. "I'm almost thirty years old. He left us. Maybe not for a long time, but he left. And I remember. Rose was only a baby, but I remember."

"You were a baby, too," Will said.

"I thought," Sascha said, "that it was my fault. Or Rose's."

Will looked at his son. He remembered holding him on his lap and reading to him. He remembered the way he smelled, soft and clean; the way his hand would curl inside his, when they walked; the way he would hop down the corridors of the _Titan_, first on one foot, and then on the other.

Why was it, he thought, that kids always thought it was their fault, anyway? Hadn't he spent his life thinking his father's monstrosity was his fault?

"We never wanted that," Will said. "It wasn't about either one of you, even if you felt it was. It was between your father and me. It was about my issues – and about his – and our issues – mine and his – have never been about you kids. Ever."

"It felt," Sascha said, "like he was gone forever."

"I know," Will agreed. "I knew you missed him – but he was away a lot."

"Not like that," Sascha said.

"No. Not like that."

"Rose told me the doctor thinks the illness is progressing faster than we'd thought."

"Yes."

"And you were fighting about him leaving."

Will said, "We were _not_ fighting. I know you're an adult, Sascha. And I know you have a major decision to make. But there are some things that are still private, between Papi and me. This is one of them."

"If I accept this job," Sascha said. "I'll be gone. And I won't necessarily see Papi again. And I don't know – " He stopped.

Will stood up. Jean-Luc had been right. There were six other people who needed him – relied on him. He'd been the captain before. He could be the captain, again. He walked over to his son, and put his hand on Sascha's shoulder, and, when Sascha didn't resist, pulled him close.

"I know it's tough," he said. "I can't help you with this decision, Alexandré, because it has to be yours. You're the only one who can make it. Your father always felt bad, that he hadn't reconciled with his father. That he hadn't been home, for his mother. That he wasn't able to save Robert, or René. But in order to do all those things, Papi would have had to have given up space. He couldn't have done that, Sascha. That's not who he was." He paused, and then he said, "You have to decide who you are. The Academy wants you to be on staff. Permanently. They are preparing to offer you a permanent position. Which would be a great honour," Will said, looking at his son. "But Captain Diako is offering you First Officer of the _McClendon_ – it's a good ship. With a good crew. And Papi would be the last person to want you to give up space for him."

"Is that what I'd be doing?" Sascha asked. "Giving up space, if I took the Academy position?"

"No," Will said. "You're young, Sascha. You have your whole career ahead of you – and there will be other ships. You have to decide what's right for you, though. Not what's right for Papi. Not what's right for me."

"I know," Sascha said, pulling away. "I knew this was coming. I just thought I had more time."

"We all thought that." Will stepped back. It had been a stupid idea, this party, but if it ended that chasm that had built up between himself and his son – well, he'd sign up for all of Rose's stupid ideas from now on.

"I like Grae," Sascha said. "And I'm glad Ensign Locarno is here. Will he be enough, though?"

"I've an appointment with Commander Steen next week," Will said. "We'll need at least one more person, for the night shift. And a medical crewman, and a nurse – but not yet."

"I wouldn't have let Rose throw Jean-Guy out of an airlock," Sascha said, standing, "as tempting as it was."

Will laughed. "One of these days," he answered, "I'll tell you about my cousin Dmitri."


End file.
